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Egypt asks why #WeAreBeingWatched

Egypt asks why #WeAreBeingWatched; God, Goodluck Jonathan and the Kremlin’s parody accounts on Twitter; and the Tiananmen trends that didn’t get past the Great Firewall of China.

What does shifting online sentiment in Egypt reveal about the country’s political landscape? This week after army man, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, was elected President with 96% of the votes two hashtags trended on Twitter.

#WeAreBeingWatched, or #احنا_متراقبين in Arabic, started after the Egyptian interior ministry announced it was going to monitor ‘influential’ activists online. And #ThankYouBassemYoussef sprang up when satirist Bassem Youssef cancelled his TV Show saying the ‘present climate in Egypt’ is ‘not suitable for a political satire programme’.

We ask blogger Zeinobia and journalist Amira Howeidy how the mood has changed online in Egypt.

God, Goodluck Jonathan and the Kremlin all have one thing in common… they all have a parody account on Twitter. We speak with the comedians and writers behind @thetweetofgod, @notgoodluck, and @kermlinrussia.

And we turn Chinese social media on its head and find out what wasn’t trending on the anniversary of the student protests in Tiananmen Square and why a song from Les Miserables was.

Presenter Mukul Devichand is joined in the Trending studio by ´óÏó´«Ã½ Chinese Editor Raymond Li.

Available now

18 minutes

Last on

Sun 8 Jun 2014 22:32GMT

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  • Egypt : "We Are Being Watched"

    What does online sentiment in Egypt reveal about the country’s political landscape?

    Duration: 06:25

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  • Tiananmen Trends that Never Were

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Broadcasts

  • Sat 7 Jun 2014 10:32GMT
  • Sun 8 Jun 2014 03:32GMT
  • Sun 8 Jun 2014 22:32GMT

Podcast