Imagine a basketball game where one team writes the rules, owns the court, and controls the referee. The crowd is silenced before tip-off, and the opposing players are warned that every play could end the match. That is not a free and fair game, it is a performance of control. The new wave of social media regulations in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region works just like that.
Two decades after MENA governments responded to the rise of social media with a
first wave of cybercrime legislations
, they are once again seeking to expand their power over what people say and do online. Over the past three years, a number of governments have increased their control over social media platforms by widening the scope of their
cybercrime laws
or introducing dedicated
social media laws
. These
draft laws
are purportedly inspired by the
EU’s Digital Services Act
(DSA), but
open up risks
that have no parallel in European democracies. As we will explain, transplanting DSA-inspired regulations can turn a framework meant to protect people’s rights into a sophisticated instrument for state censorship and control. It also poses
new challenges for social media companies
operating in authoritarian contexts — making it all the more important that they meet their responsibilities to respect human rights.
The new regulatory wave: what’s actually being proposed
In June 2023, the League of Arab States announced a
unified social media regulation strategy
inspired by the DSA and various European national laws such as the
Network Enforcement Act
(NetzDG) in Germany.
The strategy rests on four pillars: mandatory legal representation at the national level, the removal of content deemed non-compliant with national laws, the redistribution of advertising revenue to media outlets, and a dual commitment to combating Islamophobia and promoting the Arabic language. Social media companies failing to comply would face a range of sanctions, including throttling, blocking
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