Home Away from Home: How Digital Spaces Are Bringing Refugees Together
Fatima Makke, MSc Graduate in Digital Media and Society, KU Leuven
Introduction
In recent years, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region has witnessed one of the most severe displacement crises in modern history. War, political repression, economic collapse, and the accelerating effects of climate change have forcibly uprooted millions from their homes. From Syria to Sudan, Palestine to Yemen, civilians are caught in cycles of violence and instability, often with little to no access to safety or long-term solutions (Alencar et al., 2019). As traditional support systems collapse and refugee camps grow in size and strain, a parallel phenomenon is unfolding: the increasing centrality of digital spaces in the everyday lives of the displaced (Albaih, 2015; Alencar et al., 2019).
While mainstream discourse tends to emphasize the material needs and physical suffering of refugees, such as food, water, shelter, and healthcare, less attention is given to the intangible yet powerful ways in which digital technology reshapes the experience of displacement (Alencar, 2023). This commentary seeks to fill that gap by examining how digital spaces are not just tools for communication or entertainment, but active arenas where displaced individuals rebuild fractured communities, forge identities, and resist erasure.
From WhatsApp groups coordinating relief logistics to TikTok videos reclaiming narrative agency, displaced populations are increasingly harnessing digital technologies to assert power, visibility, and connection in deeply meaningful ways. This digital turn offers new avenues for self-representation, solidarity, and survival. Yet it also introduces complex challenges—unequal access, digital surveillance, and algorithmic bias all create new layers of precarity for already marginalized communities. Recognizing this duality is critical to designing digital ecosystems that are not only inclusive and empowering but also attuned to the rights, risks, and realities of refugee populations in the MENA region and beyond.
Digital Lifelines: Social Media in Displacement
Digital tools such as WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have become indispensable for displaced people navigating the uncertainties of conflict and exile. For many, these platforms are not a luxury but a necessity (Kaplan, 2018). They are used to reconnect with family, coordinate movements, and share vital survival information. In displacement scenarios, time is critical, and decisions often hinge on access to real-time updates. WhatsApp groups, for instance, provide decentralized networks of support that fill the vacuum left by weakened or absent state infrastructure. Families exchange updates about border closures, asylum procedures, food distribution points, or areas of risk (Witty, 2015; Kaplan, 2018).
But beyond logistics, these platforms serve as emotional lifelines. For Syrians scattered across multiple continents, for example, WhatsApp voice notes and video calls recreate semblances of home. Instagram stories featuring old photographs or food traditions sustain cultural memory. TikTok videos, sometimes light-hearted, sometimes raw with grief, become a vehicle for reclaiming agency. Through curated content, displaced individuals humanize their experiences, push back against reductionist media tropes, and assert ownership over their stories.
In many cases, refugees use digital platforms to build solidarity not only within their own communities but across national and cultural lines. Whether it is videos of displaced Palestinians sending their best wishes and prayers to displaced Lebanese and Sudanese victims, or charity events led in Lebanon for Palestine and boosted about on Instagram stories; we see many victims of different wars fighting to aid one another, illustrating not only how united displaced communities are in their understanding of oppression, but also how online platforms facilitate cross-border activism and solidarity to combat this oppression (immigration policy lab, n.d.; Alencar, 2023).
Digital Exclusion: Inequality and Insecurity in Online Spaces
Yet, despite the promise of connectivity, digital spaces are not universally accessible nor inherently safe. The digital divide remains one of the most significant obstacles to equitable participation in online life. Access to smartphones, data, stable electricity, and literacy varies dramatically across contexts (Barnett, 2023; Amnesty International, 2024). A Syrian refugee in Germany with broadband and digital literacy may livestream their experiences to a global audience, while a Sudanese woman in a remote Darfur IDP camp may be cut off entirely. This disparity creates a hierarchy of digital voice, where some narratives are amplified, others remain silent.
Moreover, many digital platforms operate within surveillance capitalism. Displaced individuals, already vulnerable, often use apps without understanding their data privacy rights. Consequently, personal data is often harvested and exploited by third parties. According to a 2024 report by Amnesty International on defending the rights of refugees and migrants in the digital age, involuntary data extraction in the context of asylum procedures can pose significant threats to human rights, particularly the right to privacy and the right to seek asylum. Such intrusive data practices risk creating unjustifiable invasions of privacy as well as furthering discrimination based on race, ethnicity, and citizenship status. Repressive governments and hostile actors can weaponize this data, leading to harassment, threats, or even arrests targeting refugees for their digital activities, as seen in countries such as Lebanon and Turkey. Thus, while digital spaces may appear empowering, they can also become tools of control, manipulation, and surveillance that put displaced people at further risk.
Additionally, misinformation thrives in these spaces. In the absence of verified news, rumors often spread rapidly, whether it is about visa policies, aid distributions, or cases of missing persons, the lack of secure and validated news can lead to confusion and sometimes in extreme cases, dangerous decisions (Ghanem et al., n.d.; Barnett, 2023). Moreover, social media platforms often lack moderation in Arabic or local dialects, allowing hate speech, scams, and political propaganda to circulate with impunity (Muhammad, 2024). Meaning refugees face the double burden of navigating misinformation while simultaneously dealing with the structural precarity of their condition.
Youth Activism and Digital Creativity
Despite these challenges, displaced youth are reclaiming digital space as a frontier of activism, creativity, and community-building. No longer passive recipients of aid or objects of pity, many young people from conflict-affected regions are becoming digital storytellers, educators, organizers, and entrepreneurs. They harness the power of social media not only to inform and advocate, but to redefine cultural identity on their own terms (Disinformation Social Media Alliance, 2024).
On platforms like TikTok and Instagram, youth-led initiatives have emerged with remarkable reach and impact. Videos showing life inside Gaza during blackouts, or tutorials on cooking traditional dishes under siege, have gone viral. Creators like Palestia and Bisan, who reported from Gaza during communications blackouts, became essential voices when global media went silent. Others, like Chef Renad, use cooking content to preserve and share cultural heritage, strengthening community ties among diaspora populations and displaced persons alike.
These efforts are not merely anecdotal. Digital storytelling has become a strategic tool of survival and cultural resistance. For many displaced youth, identity is no longer rooted in a fixed geography, but in shared struggle, cultural expression, and mutual support. The internet allows them to remain “home” in the symbolic sense and even go as far as to build communities with those who have lost their homes or were forced to flee (Disinformation Social Media Alliance, 2024; Amnesty International, 2024).
Redefining Belonging in the Virtual Realm
The growing influence of digital life among displaced communities necessitates a rethinking of what it means to belong. Traditionally, concepts of citizenship, identity, and community were tied to territory, documentation, and state recognition. In today’s digital age, however, belonging is increasingly co-constructed online, through shared values, interaction, and reciprocal care. For many refugees, these virtual spaces offer a rare form of stability and continuity. They become places to celebrate holidays, mourn losses, conduct business, and engage in activism (Smertnik and Bailur, 2020).
Yet this evolving form of digital belonging brings its own ethical challenges. Governments, NGOs, and tech companies must grapple with their responsibilities. Digital literacy training is urgently needed in camps and host communities, as is investment in infrastructure that ensures connectivity and security. Platforms must develop content moderation policies that protect displaced populations from harm while amplifying their voices. And perhaps most importantly, displaced populations must be recognized not just as users of technology, but as co-creators of digital futures.
Several humanitarian organizations have already started integrating digital access into their programming. Initiatives such as “Refugee.info” and “Tarjimly” offer multilingual, AI-powered support for displaced individuals, from legal advice to mental health resources. However, these interventions remain fragmented and underfunded, and not to mention, they lack enough accessibility and representation to the audience that they are intended for (Grandi, 2020). Which is why a coordinated, rights-based approach is needed. One that ensures that the audience it is intended for understands the ways of working, and that it centers itself around the voices and needs of displaced communities in the design and deployment of digital tools.
Conclusion
This commentary has explored the transformative potential of digital spaces for displaced populations in the MENA region. Social media and digital tools offer more than just channels for connection and information—they have become crucial platforms for identity formation, community-building, and resistance. These technologies allow refugees to navigate displacement with agency and dignity, challenge reductive media narratives, and assert their presence in a global digital society.
However, this transformation is neither universal nor without peril. The digital divide, algorithmic discrimination, and cyber insecurity continue to disproportionately impact the most vulnerable. Surveillance, misinformation, and systemic exclusion are growing threats that risk replicating, and even deepening, the marginalizations refugees face offline. If digital technologies are to fulfill their emancipatory promise, these structural barriers must be urgently addressed. Displacement today is increasingly hybrid, rooted in both physical and digital geographies. Recognizing this reality requires expanding our understanding of humanitarian response, belonging, and citizenship. It means asking not only how we provide shelter and food, but how we sustain memory, voice, and dignity in exile.
As testimonies across TikTok, Instagram, and WhatsApp make clear, the human drive to connect, create, and belong persists despite dislocation. It is imperative that policymakers, humanitarian actors, and digital platforms respond to this will with meaningful support, not silence. Failure to do so risks consigning yet another generation of displaced people to digital erasure. In a world increasingly shaped by digital relationships, displaced communities must not only be included but also empowered to lead, create, and thrive. Their stories are not just content to be consumed—they are urgent calls to action, demanding visibility in an ecosystem that too often favors trends over truth.
This article is part of a series of articles commissioned under the ‘Resilience and Inclusive Politics in the Arab Region’, generously funded by the Carnegie Corporation.