E-committees first came to life during Mubarak-era policy committee’s established an e-committee to polish the regime’s image. According to testimonies of several of its members, the electronic committee was assigned the creation of electronic accounts to post positive comments on the news, criticize opposition pages and regularly post news on anonymous pages intended to tarnish the reputation of opposition figures. All of this was done in return for a fixed fee.
E-committees first came to life during Mubarak-era policy committee’s established an e-committee to polish the regime’s image. According to testimonies of several of its members, the electronic committee was assigned the creation of electronic accounts to post positive comments on the news, criticize opposition pages and regularly post news on anonymous pages intended to tarnish the reputation of opposition figures. All of this was done in return for a fixed fee.
The term became even more widely used once Islamists came to power; more anti-opposition accounts were created, and many seemingly pro-opposition pages—which had many visitors— turned out to be pro-Islamist.
Definition and scope of work
According to pro-revolution Facebook activists Ahmad Shorbagi and Mahmoud Faqi, identifying an electronic committee affiliate requires several conditions related to his virtual performance:
- Usually no photo and insufficient personal information posted and most comments are pro-regime.
- Only appears in times when attacks on the president and the regime are on the increase, opposing for example, any calls to oust the president without defending the government’s positions.
- Focuses in his comments on particular pages and authors and does not care about unpopular opposition accounts.
- Questions any negative news about the regime, even before receiving relevant instructions.
- Copies and pastes a large number of comments on all opposition pages and sometimes posts comments through a page rather than a personal profile, in order to avoid closure of his Facebook page if complaints are filed to Facebook management.
- Hides his real gender by claiming that he is a female, which does not appear in his profile information, or hides behind Islamic code names such as “I believe in Allah” or “The true Muslim.”
According to the two activists, e-committee affiliates have a wide scope of work, including:
1- Commenting on subjects posted on the most frequently visited newspaper pages.
2- Commenting on posts overtly criticizing the regime on popular Facebook pages.
3- Ruthlessly criticizing anti-regime celebrities through Facebook and Twitter and regularly questioning every word they say.
4- Creating pages initially considered non-political then making them take the regime’s side.
Anonymous employees
According to researcher Ahmad Kheir, director of an IT support center, most of those areas or features are not enough to consider the account holder an organized e-committee affiliate, especially with respect to Islamists because the matter is completely different if compared to the committees previously supervised by Ali Eddin Hilal, former leadership member of the dissolved National Party.
The Muslim Brotherhood’s solid organizational structure allows it to have a large volunteer crew to defend its stances without the need of a body to be paid to fulfill that task. Kheir however does not rule out the existence of such a body, but at the same time has no proof of its existence. Who would admit that he has a paid job as an e-committee affiliate? Kheir wondered.
Why then are those people labeled as e-committee affiliates? Kheir believes that the Brotherhood and its adherents are kept to themselves and they wait for things to be interpreted to them on pages whose access is denied. They then spread those interpretations widely in a manner regarded by the opposition as an organized mobilization, despite the fact that those on the other side may accuse the opposition of doing the same thing.
Kheir stressed that this could be applied to all political players not only the Brotherhood, with one difference being that the Brotherhood was more organized and outnumbered its opponents.
Having conducted a study on Internet comments, Kheir questioned the criteria according to which e-committees were defined. Absence of a photo Kheir says, means little, because normal users sometimes do not post their photos or post pictures depicting natural scenery.
Even if paid, so what!
Author and blogger Ahmad Samir believed that dedicating one’s time to championing a political party was not something to be ashamed of even if it was a paid job. According to him, directors of pages such as ‘We Are The Muslim Brothers, Know Us Well!’ and ‘The Muslim Brotherhood’s Heartbeat’ are getting paid for their fulltime efforts, and even implementing certain instructions could be viewed as logical under party commitment, especially when such instructions are related to the regime’s plans. For example, the Brotherhood’s pages have recently received instructions not to cheer the execution decision issued in the Port Said case lest the Brotherhood should lose the support of the people of Port Said, which indicates that everything is carefully calculated in this system.
With respect to the copy and paste phenomenon, Samir believes that most members of political organizations lack an automatic political awareness that could make them capable of interpreting things correctly; therefore, they await an interpretation from a highly ranked person in order to respond to critics, which gives the impression that they only convey the official interpretation in return for a fee.
Is it real or virtual
On the other hand, alternative media specialist Abdurrahman Mansour believes that there is a huge difference between e-committees under Mubarak and under the Brotherhood. The latter’s political doctrine and solid organizational structure makes its committees much more powerful and disaffirms the accusations of having paid work, because they convey what they have learned inside their group to cyber space, benefiting from the fact that supporting opposite viewpoints through Facebook and Twitter is very easy, as long as the campaign is well organized, and psychologically opting to support the majority even if that majority’s discourse is illogical.
Executive editor-in-chief of ‘Youm 7’ newspaper, Akram Qassass, believes that because of their expertise and reading habits, the readers bear the greatest of responsibility in knowing the truth behind every comment. His newspaper cannot prevent the comments that do not violate the code of ethics, even if one reader posts one anti-opposition comment, using 20 different names through 20 published news items.
Qassass criticizes social media websites, which he says are detached from reality.
