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How credible are Egypt’s online polls?

Opinion-takers employ both old and new technology to get inside the public’s collective head, but it’s hard to know if the results can be trusted.
Men smoke and use their mobile phones as they sit at a small cafe in Siwa, November 22, 2014. Residents of Siwa have been hurt by declining tourism in Egypt, which received 9.5 million tourists last year, down from over 14.7 million tourists in 2010, before the uprising that ousted autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Nationwide, the situation is gradually improving and the government says tourism could recover to pre-crisis levels next year if regional turmoil spares Egypt. But Siwa, located just 50 km (30 miles) from

Since the January 25 Revolution of 2011, pollsters have taken a great interest in the opinion of the ordinary Egyptian citizen. After all, ordinary citizens had just shown themselves to be the most pivotal players in Egypt by toppling the Hosni Mubarak regime, which had controlled political life in Egypt for more than 30 years. 

As a result, civil society organizations, think tanks and perhaps even ordinary activists — anyone hoping to gauge public sentiment — have sought to embrace the widest possible segment of Egyptians, especially through online polls.

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