Layalina Productions, Inc. | The Layalina Review: "Everyone Loves Twitter"

The Layalina Review

VOL. V NO. 16, July 17-July 30, 2009

Everyone Loves Twitter

Twitter has almost tripled its use in the Middle East and North Africa over the past several months, reports AME Info. The article cites research conducted by Spot On Public Relations, communications consultants based in the Middle East.

This year “has seen great numbers of [non-internet professionals] join Twitter,” which has led to greater “media influence and search engine impact,” AME Info says. Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE have the greatest number of Twitter users-- countries which also have the most Facebook users, according to the report.

Carrington Malin, managing director of Spot On Public Relations, told AME Info that their study proves “that Twitter is starting to make its presence felt across the [Middle East] region.”

The use of Twitter across the Middle East garnered extensive international attention during the recent presidential election in Iran.

James Jay Carafano of the American Heritage Foundation writes that social networking played several key roles during the Iranian election, including “mobilizing the Iranian Diaspora [and] organizing the activists.”

“Though the government attempted to limit access to the Web, it was unable to prevent global activism in response to the Iranian election crisis,” he continues.

Carafano also points out that Iran has long sought to control citizens’ access to the internet, by banning a number of websites, censoring search terms, and requiring both Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet Connection Providers (ICPs) to be licensed and monitored by the government. During the election, the Iranian government also removed most traditional journalists.

“Iranians turned to activists outside the country to help facilitate the transfer of information,” Carafano writes. Outside Iran, where fast and open internet access is possible, activists were able to set up proxy servers, provide English translations and collect and post the volumes of “street journalism” coming out of the country.

Reports included “details about the location of future protests, posting warnings on government crackdowns, and sharing updates on individuals injured, killed, arrested, or missing,” says Carafano.

Iran has now recently enacted a law which is intended to increase internet security and reduce “cybercrimes,” reports PressTV. The law “stipulates punishments for specified illegal activities in cyberspace.”

The law is controversial because it requires ISPs “to store all the data sent or received by each of their clients,” the article states, and although the legislation also bars surveillance of the data except by court order, there is an open possibility of misuse.

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