Ali Ibrahim

By : Ali Ibrahim

The Center for Strategic and International Studies released a statistical study that included 7 million tweets in Arabic, which in turn portrayed the image of social networking as an arena employed for means of egging sectarian conflict and waging verbal wars among the people with Twitter accounts.

They have taken advantage of network access to express not only their backgrounds but also their allegiances and stances on current conflicts, bombings and other violent acts. However, we must also take into account those Arabic tweets that encouraged counterterrorism and fought sectarian feud.

With both sides of the coin showing up, one is confused whether the Tweets or Facebook comments truly reflect the public’s opinion and the social atmosphere of the countries they are posted from. Meanwhile, millions have gained access to the present technology allowing freedom of expression and thus exercise that merit, others that might as well be the entire other half of the country, or more, are still miles away from this social media revolution; which implies that this technology cannot be used to reflect or understand public opinion.

Nevertheless others had different approaches toward the present subject, which was that we couldn’t rule out the fact that the account users posting online are active members, even if they are just sitting behind computer monitors. They are still fighting their battles, except in an electronic field.

They also affect their society and communities, as means of technology have allowed them to gain the advantage of rapid spread medium where they can impose their influences through. Their thoughts and posts spread quickly.

The events of 2011 stand out as an example proving that social networking is an extremely effective and interactive tool directly reporting incidents and information graphically, in addition to publishing both accurate and false news.

Governments that considered this medium a “child’s toy” with no substantial threat to it, underestimating the generation employing this technology, were crushed by the high tide of social networking. The Internet has provided a stage from which those with no means to self-expression to not only express themselves, but also supplied them with an audience. Moreover, extremist and radical fanatics have perfected the art of utilizing simple well-intentioned social networking portals for delivering their infectious ways to the public: Sampling their exclusives “ Your guide to explosives,” graphic videos of beheadings, explosions, blood, horror and their own line of works resulting of their philosophy on terrorizing people and spreading fear.

The atmosphere that perhaps helped in providing a nurturing environment for these abominations can be traced back to the conflicts, and fiery clashes flaring up the region in Syria, Yemen, and Libya in addition to the foreign interference present that endorsed sectarian feud.

We need to realize the necessity of wisdom and logic needed in resolving and relieving the current tense and poisonous atmosphere. We need to search for means efficient in limiting wars spread by social networking, and ban the use of verbal abuse and hostile sectarian expressions.

We could only hope that taking control measures for these online violence and insurgence will prevent them from expanding their influence and realizing into battle fields on true soil and with real lives put at stake.

Ali Ibrahim, is the Deputy Editor in Chief Asharq Alawsat. He can be reached on twitter @Alii_Ibrahim

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in the Column section are their own and do not reflect RiyadhVision’s point-of-view.

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