At the end of 2025, the MENA Alliance for Digital Rights undertook a member survey to take the temperature of the digital rights movement in our region.
In interviews, we asked members to share what substantive issues they are focusing on, investigated how funding has impacted our region, and gauged the extent of legal and other forms of harassment experienced by our members. Our discussions revealed a movement that has been battered by the geopolitical storms of the last few years. But in the words of Egyptian activist and recently freed friend of our movement, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, “we have not yet been defeated.”
The MENA Alliance for Digital Rights (MADR) was launched in 2021 to advocate for Internet and tech policies that reflect the region’s complex social and political circumstances. Formerly the “Arab Alliance for Digital Rights,” we changed our name to MADR to reflect our shared interests with the broader region.
We unfortunately confirmed that MADR members are facing operational challenges, including lost funding or various forms of harassment. Despite this, they have managed to continue to provide important technical and security support to women, human rights defenders, and entire communities, produce high quality research, conduct digital literacy campaigns, and engage in advocacy.
When it came to priorities, we found that fundamental rights like privacy and freedom of expression that have been the traditional focus of the digital rights movement were universally rated as critical. We found that interests diverged significantly on specific issues such as militarized technology and AI development. However, every topic was considered essential by at least several members, highlighting the diverse coverage of digital rights by MADR members and the many clear opportunities for skill-sharing and coordination within the Alliance.
Dima Samaro, Executive Director of Skyline International for human rights, explained “In our region, AI is not a distant policy debate. It is a matter of life and death. From Gaza to Lebanon, we have seen how militarized technology and automated systems are weaponized to facilitate mass destruction and the systematic erasure of entire neighborhoods. For MADR, the priority is no longer just digital privacy but rather ensuring that technology is not used to automate the devastation of our communities.”
A few areas of coordination that are particularly encouraging are a desire to share technical and fundraising capacities, an emphasis on skill-sharing amongst members, and a desire to broaden the focus of the MADR’s work to reflect our diverse membership. In interviews, members suggested creative ideas that can be integrated into MADR’s work in 2026, such as focused skill-sharing webinars and joint funding proposals.
MADR now includes over 30 organizations and individuals from across the region, with focuses as varied as technical research, digital literacy, legal advocacy, and direct support to individuals and communities targeted by digital rights violations.
One specific area of advocacy and research that elicited strong responses from members was content moderation work. This is an area in which MADR’s work has been the most visible, from the Stop Silencing Palestine campaign to publishing a “Frequently Asked Questions about content moderation” MADR has had joint meetings with tech companies to advocate around ongoing content moderation issues in the region such as overbroad “terrorist content” policies.
MADR members have also individually and collaboratively spent time researching and documenting content moderation issues and supporting community members facing online rights violations through helpdesks. As many global majority advocates have expressed over the years, this work feels like unpaid labor while still being essential to our community members. Even worse, some companies have become less responsive to reports from helpdesks- potentially because they laid off Trust & Safety and human rights staff.
Members said they value the alliance as a trusted space for solidarity and rapid response Content moderation and other advocacy work is taking place in an increasingly difficult geopolitical context, where media attention and wins are few and far between.
In this context, MADR will continue to serve as a trusted space for solidarity and rapid response. Dia Kayyali, independent member of the MADR, emphasized the importance of this function, noting, “MADR provides a place for independent human rights practitioners, organizations from the region, and international organizations to share information about developing situations and respond together. As technological threats and opportunities develop at an ever increasing-speed, this will be even more essential.”
In 2026, we believe MADR’s public-facing advocacy will reflect these insights through more innovative campaigns. Despite external pressures and gaps in regional representation within the alliance, the MADR remains a vital connective tissue.
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