Brotherhood use trolls, bots after Islamist websites blocked

CAIRO – 29 May 2017: The Muslim Brotherhood will intensify Internet trolls and bot activity to counter the decision of blocking their websites in Egypt, Khaled al-Zafarani, former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood and expert in Islamic movements, said Sunday.

The members of the group will create more pages on social media in the upcoming period to publish and circulate the Brotherhood’s news and messages, al-Zafarani told Egypt Today.

“This strategy was adopted by the Brotherhood earlier many times,” al-Zafarani said.

He added that the Brotherhood leaders will use the new pages to address foreign countries and circulate their statements after 21 websites have been blocked in Egypt, including Qatar’s Aljazeera, because they publish content that “supports terrorism and deliberately spreads lies.”

Since May 24, Egyptians have not been able to access pro-Islamist news websites and other news portals such as Masr al-Arabia, Arabi 21, Al-Sharq, Klmty, al-Horria Post, Hasam Egypt, Ikhwan Online, Rassd, Cairo Portal, Egypt Window, as well as the website of the Palestinian group Hamas.