Cyberspace today is governed by few laws and is a place where almost anything is allowed. Good and bad are equally present. While it can be a tool to provide important messages, increase public awareness about certain issues, fight corruption, and provide a domain for social solidarity where people can raise money for the needy, it can also be a playground for swindlers who cheat people and raise funds illegally.

Social networks, one of the main features of cyberspace, were born in the late 1990s, when a group of platforms emerged. Classmates.com and SixDegrees.com, for instance, were sites that provided message exchanges with friends. However, they failed to generate profits for their owners and were closed.

In 2005, MySpace, a site with more page views than Google at the time, was created and considered the largest social network in the world. However, Mark Zuckerberg, then a young computer genius still studying at Harvard University in the US, decided with the help of campus roommates to launch a new social-networking site called Facebook that would link university students together.

That was in 2004. The site expanded fast and soon transcended the borders of just universities to reach one billion users worldwide by 2012. Zuckerberg became the CEO of Facebook, which today has more than 800 million users globally.

In September 2016, the TikTok platform was launched in the US and soon became one of the most popular social-networking applications in the world. Users can create, watch, and share 15-second videos filmed on mobile devices or webcams. Today, the TikTok platform has a record 102.3 million users in the US alone.

Nevertheless, the story has not been one of unmitigated success, since some of these social networks have turned into platforms for fraud in the absence of legal supervision. Fraudulent videos have spread fast on social media to beg for money, for example.

In one recent incident, an Egyptian girl and her mother, both dressed in shabby attire, went viral on social media. They claimed they had been living in very hard conditions, had serious illnesses, and were in severe need of financial support. They begged for help from people in the Arab countries and were able to collect a fortune from people who sympathised with their plight.

One day, however, one of the TikTok girl’s followers was shocked to see the same allegedly poor girl in the widely circulated videos dressed up and well-groomed while parking her car in front of a villa with her mother sitting beside her.

The follower immediately took out her mobile phone to capture a video of the TikTok girl and her mother and posted it on the Internet to reveal the fraud to other followers. The girl and her mother turned out to be professional beggars who had hired an old house and got dressed in old clothes in order to film their fraudulent videos that had raised thousands of dollars.

This has not been the only incident of such electronic begging, and it seems to have become a trend worldwide. The question is whether there are laws that can govern cyberspace, and if there are legitimate sites that people can trust. After all, social media is a useful platform for fundraising for many legitimate NGOs and international organisations. It would be a shame if they could no longer use it because people do not trust what they see in cyberspace.

In May 2022, former minister of social solidarity Nevine Al-Qabbaj issued a statement mandating the need for permits for online fundraising in Egypt. “The permits will be granted within a few days after examining the case and the purpose of collecting the donations,” she told the press at the time.

The minister made it clear that Article 26 of Law 149/2019, which regulates civil society organisations, stipulates that those seeking funds online through Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or other social-media platforms will be subject to legal accountability if they do not have a permit to do so.

The statement came on the heels of the arrest of one of the most famous users of social-media platforms to raise money in Egypt, who had dubbed herself the “republic of the good.” The arrested girl used to post videos standing in front of a cart that she said was used to prepare sandwiches for the poor. She asked for financial support from the “good people” of Egypt and the Gulf countries to help her buy materials for her apparently charitable initiative.

She was soon arrested on charges of illegally raising funds without a permit. The videos were also deemed offensive since the girl was asking for charity for Egypt from the Gulf countries.

 

A WORLDWIDE PROBLEM: Electronic begging and fraud is not limited to Egypt. Many similar cases have been reported from many different parts of the world, perhaps using different narratives.

One prominent incident was that of a 19-year-old US girl named Madison Russo who was ultimately arrested on charges of falsifying her cancer diagnosis in an attempt to deceive her followers on TikTok and collect money from online sympathisers in 2023.

The police charged Russo with collecting donations on her TikTok page, called Madison Russo GoFundMe, in a fraudulent manner. The story dates back to 2022 when Russo went viral on TikTok while documenting her illness. She managed to collect more than $37,000.

The police charged her with fraud after her tricks were revealed due to “medical inconsistencies”. Her followers had contacted the police after becoming suspicious about her stories concerning her alleged health issues. Russo was particularly suspected when she spoke about having received three different diagnoses, including leukemia, pancreatic cancer, and a football-sized tumour, in one single year.

She could now face up to 10 years behind bars.

“Electronic begging is the digital version of street begging,” said Ahmed Esmat, a consultant in media technology and digital transformation.

“Instead of standing in the streets showing fake medical reports to passers-by, electronic beggars shoot videos showing fake reports and settings and then post them online. The only difference is that cyberspace makes it easier for them to remain anonymous and get more money.”

Although online begging is largely a byproduct of poverty and the economic crisis the world is currently going through, there is also a consensus that it should be considered a type of organised crime.

“Electronic begging is a type of crime that occurs in the absence of supervision in virtual reality,” Esmat told Al-Ahram Weekly. “People post fake pictures of a sick child in a hospital or a house that has been demolished in order to gain sympathy to raise money. They not only steal money in doing so, but they also harm those who really are in need because it becomes very difficult for social-media users who are willing to help to tell true appeals from false ones.”

Esmat said that people should be aware of the issues and investigate such cases before donating any money to online appeals. They should also reach out to licensed charitable organisations instead.

Mohamed Ahmed, a lawyer and teacher of criminal law, said that electronic begging is a form of fraud that in Egypt can be penalised by up to three years in prison. Law 157/2018, which deals with information technology crimes, provides penalties for cybercrimes, he said, and people charged with breaking this law can be tried before the Economic Court.

Cyberspace aside, the law can already impose a penalty of imprisonment of a period not exceeding three months on people over 15 years of age found begging in the streets.

Kepios, a Singapore-based research firm, has been trying to find out what people are doing online in response to such concerns. It provides data that help to “identify changes in digital behaviour and translate insights and trends into enduring success,” it says.

Headed by researcher Simon Kemp, a specialist in social-media management, Kepios shows how social-media platforms have become a major venue for digital activities. The site confirms that Egypt was home to 45.4 million social-media users in January 2024, or some 40 per cent of the population.

According to Kepios, Facebook is the most important platform in Egypt. As of March 2024, Facebook made up 62.17 per cent of social-media activity in Egypt.

“The continuous growth [of Internet use in Egypt] is reflected in the number of Internet users, reaching 82.01 million users in January 2024, with a penetration rate of 72.2 per cent of the population,” the site says. “This constitutes a huge audience that marketers can effectively target across various digital campaigns.”

As for the TikTok platform, Kepios said that ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, had 32.94 million users in Egypt aged 18 years and above at the beginning of 2024. The growth in users increased the potential of ads reaching the population on TikTok in Egypt by 9.2 million between January 2023 and January 2024.

 

POSITIVE STORIES: The surge in social-network use in Egypt has also had positive impacts.

In May, for example, I woke up to a message from a stranger called Fathia asking me for support. Fathia’s mother, confined to a wheelchair, suffers from heart disease, diabetes, and cancer. They live in a rented room in the city of Damietta, but the house was about to collapse, putting their lives in danger.

Fathia is a good student who got high grades in the last year of her high-school exams (Thanawiya Amma), but she could not afford to go to the Faculty of Medicine because of her poverty. Fathia’s dreams of becoming a doctor were shattered, but she joined the Faculty of Nursing instead in order to take care of her sick mother.

Living in a dangerous property remained an imminent threat, however, and Fathia sent hundreds of complaints to the governor of Damietta, the prime minister, and also to President Abdel-Fattah Al-Sisi requesting the provision of an apartment in social housing. She also called upon the authorities to provide for the expensive treatment of her mother. Her mother is in need of injections that cost LE20,000, and Fathia has no other family members to support her.

Fathia’s appeals were in vain, and asking for help on social media was the only way out.

I decided to help Fathia make a video explaining her plight and posted it on my own TikTok page. The video soon went viral, attracting hundreds of sympathisers who provided financial, medical, and other assistance to Fathia and her mother.

Fathia still awaits a response to her request for a safe place to live in. But the story reveals the power of social media and its role in providing help at times of crisis.

Another case in point is that of a child called Rashid, who suffered from spinal muscular atrophy. It was in June 2021 that Rashid’s mother, Hoda Badr, made efforts through social media to find a way out for son who was then literally facing death.

Badr published the details of her son’s condition on her Facebook page, where she also posted pictures of his physical deterioration. Rashid was almost unable to move despite receiving physiotherapy on a daily basis. He was in urgent need of an injection costing $2.1 million (about LE35 million), given once before the age of two. Rashid had only four months left before the injection deadline, and Badr pleaded with officials to help her save her son and provide him with the injection at government expense.

Social-media users widely circulated the mother’s appeal. A hashtag entitled “Save Rashid” was launched, and thousands of people expressed their willingness to donate. Rashid’s family rushed to obtain a licence from the Ministry of Social Solidarity to open a bank account for Rashid to receive donations.

The necessary funds were raised in a few weeks, and Rashid received the injection. His life was saved at the 11th hour. This inspiring story also shows the power of social media and how it can open doors of hope to many desperate people.

The good news is that Rashid was not the only one to be helped. In fact, his story has inspired similar initiatives on Facebook to save other children with spinal muscular atrophy.

In October 2022, Egyptians raced against time to raise money to buy a $2 million injection to save the life of Celine, aged a year and a half, and again with spinal muscular atrophy. Celine was having difficulties breathing and swallowing as a result of her medical condition. She also had other problems that would be fatal unless she received the injection.

The success story of Rashid provided hope for Celine’s parents. They posted the case of their child on social media and soon received donations covering the costs of Celine’s treatment.

Rashid and Celine were thus both saved thanks to social media and Egyptian social solidarity.

In a similar vein, Mahmoud Shakal, coordinator of Egypt’s Workers Abroad Syndicate, launched a campaign in April 2022 to save the lives of two Egyptian nationals who had been sentenced to death in Saudi Arabia. Ahmed Al-Mansi had been imprisoned in Mecca since 2015, and Mohamed Hassan had been imprisoned in Al-Ahsa since 2012. The two men were accused of murder, and only a few days were left before their execution unless they paid 7.5 million Saudi riyals.

Shakal’s social-media campaign was instrumental in collecting the money and saving the two men’s lives.

“Cyberspace is a double-edged sword, and users should remain alert and make sure that the humanitarian cases they read about on social media are true before they decide to help,” Esmat concluded.

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* A version of this article appears in print in the 5 September, 2024 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly