Egyptian journalists' view of the professional and ethical regulations that controls the use of social media networks in journalistic work and their relationship to prevailing methods of practice

The communication and information technology that the world is witnessing today brought very important changes in the dynamics of journalistic work in various stages and changed many concepts that have remained entrenched for a long time, including the definitions of “journalism” and “journalist”, which have undergone a deep restructuring, due to the digitization of the collection, processing, and dissemination of information. Also, the gradual change in the role of the public that was perceived as a “passive” consumer of the media into an active participant and even a producer of press material.
Moreover, among the changes brought by these developments is the interaction with citizens and the use of social media sites as tools for journalistic work, and despite the positive role of these networks, they have posed a professional challenge for journalists, especially with regard to the accuracy of what is published on those means, and its relationship to the spread of rumors, defamation, fraud, forgery, extortion, disguise and plagiarism, violating the privacy of citizens, and manipulating information and images.
The weight of these challenges is exacerbated by the open and cross-border electronic environment, and the use of these networks as a new media platform due to the ease in setting up accounts and the difficulty of blocking by the state and employing them to launch malicious electronic campaigns, and the use of images and videos biased to a particular point of view to charge public opinion that may be installed or Fabricating or reusing them in a way that affects the movement of events, waging psychological wars and spreading rumors that may strike national interests with the aim of influencing internal stability.
These new challenges impose a balance between the right to use new technologies and not posing a threat to the security of society, which leads to the importance of having controls Control and guide the use process, and that risks are dealt with according to their distinct characteristics.
The expansion of electronic publishing imposed new changes in the media arena, as it broke the regulatory controls and conditions that characterized traditional media for practicing the profession of journalism, and it did not only change the nature and roles of the elements of the process, such as the emergence of the interaction of the recipient who, in turn, became a sender. This also led to the difficulty of developing legal legislation to regulate journalistic work in the electronic environment in light of the shrinking margin of censorship, and this undoubtedly affects the ethics and controls of the profession. The technical and technological development that societies have known had to be accompanied by development of another kind at the legal and legislative level as well.
 For the required balance to be achieved that preserves the general pattern of journalism specifically as a profession with its principles and alphabets, the change of legislation in the digital environment created a great legal void that made this journalism in the Arab world far from censorship and authority, even if the latter interferes in controlling electronic content in indirect ways. The lack of legal controls made this media space grow in endless chaos, where the rights and duties of the electronic journalist are not known, and ethics do not emerge. The professionalism that those working in the electronic environment are supposed to adhere to, which raises questions about the reliability of this electronic journalistic content, the extent of its objectivity, the sincerity of its sources and its backgrounds, which are often anonymous.
Accurate verification of information is a burden on the professional press, as accurate coverage of events depends on care and diligence to verify the validity of information circulating through social media, especially Twitter, or reports broadcast by various news organizations.