Joey Shea is a former Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute’s Cyber Program focusing on digital information controls and operations, security, political violence, and the impact of technology across the Middle East and North Africa. She also consults for the World Bank.
Previously, Joey was a Non Resident Fellow at the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy, researching digital rights in the Middle East. She was also an Information Controls Research Fellow with the Open Technology Fund and eQualit.e, investigating censorship and surveillance in Egypt. She has acted as a digital security consultant for human rights organizations in Egypt and worked as a researcher at the American University in Cairo, the American University of Beirut, and other civil society organizations.
Despite great diplomatic efforts, progress on reaching a comprehensive agreement between Egypt, Ethiopia, and Sudan over the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam (GERD) has remained elusive. While these states have long resorted to legal and political means to protect their share of the Nile, the battle over the dam is increasingly playing out in the global theater of public opinion: social media.
