We all know the many ways the Internet has been used in the service of terrorism -- al Qaeda-linked websites, recruitment videos, uploads of Bin Laden's latest video screed and how-to-blow-things-up online manuals. Al-Qaida and its sympathizers were early adopters of the Web and have made destructive use of its unparalleled ability to connect people.

But a new, countervailing trend is emerging: More and more of the Middle East is getting wired. As a result, we can now change the conversation to the impact of technology and social media on peace, not just on terror.

This was, in fact, one of the topics addressed at a conference I attended recently in Abu Dhabi. Now, I've been to a lot of tech conferences, but I've rarely seen the sort of enthusiasm and optimism that I witnessed at the Sir Bani Yas conference, convened by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed (foreign minister of the United Arab Emirates) and the International Peace Institute. It was not unlike going back in a time machine and re-experiencing the sense of possibility and excitement that characterized the early Internet years in the United States.

Except, in the Middle East, that possibility carries with it a life-and-death urgency. When the Internet hit the United States, we were already a free society, awash in data and information. And yet, even with all that, the Internet and social media have transformed the United States. Just imagine the potential of this incredibly powerful and hard-to-contain technology in a region where information has been so tightly controlled.

The numbers are impressive: The Arabic version of Facebook added 1 million new users each month in June, July and August. Egypt alone added over 600,000 users during that period.

There are now more than 17 million Facebook users in the region. It's not just the young signing up -- in the United Arab Emirates, for example, almost 70 percent of Facebook users are over 25 years old. And although the percentage is lower than it is in the West, women account for 37 percent of Facebook users in the Middle East.

Perhaps even more significant, the number of Facebook users in the region has now surpassed the number of newspaper subscribers -- a potential turning point, since the information that people see in print is easier to control than what people are able to access online.

This social networking explosion comes in the wake of the dramatic impact that Twitter had on the Iranian uprising in the summer of 2009. That was when the State Department, accurately sensing how important Twitter was becoming, requested that Twitter delay a planned network upgrade so that it didn't occur during daytime hours in Iran. Besides issuing statements of "strong concern" and threatening further sanctions, the State Department was hesitant to put direct pressure on the Iranian regime. Twitter, on the other hand, was "practically ideal for a mass protest movement," as Time's Lev Grossman wrote at the time, "both very easy for the average citizen to use and very hard for any central authority to control."

Not only did Twitter allow those inside Iran to communicate with each other, it allowed the rest of the world to see what was going on at a time when the regime had severely restricted the mainstream media's ability to cover the story.

A year before that, we saw how useful Twitter could be in an isolated instance. In April 2008, Berkeley graduate student James Karl Buck and his translator were arrested in Egypt while covering an anti-government protest. His one-word tweet was "arrested."

And with that one word, he kicked into motion a chain of events. Friends quickly connected with each other and coordinated the hiring of a lawyer. Less than 24 hours later, another one word tweet was sent out: "Free." (Who says you need 140 characters?)

It's because of the remarkable and unruly power of social media that many governments in the region are dead set on trying to control it. As the Epoch Times reported this summer, attempts at censorship are popping up almost as fast as new users. The Afghan government blocks websites dealing with alcohol, gambling and, yes, social networking. Pakistan announced intentions to put up barriers to Yahoo!, Google and YouTube. And Turkey has blocked access to YouTube altogether.

Of course, the rapid spread of technology is no guarantee of rapid transformation. But it's hard to witness the spread of social media, especially among the young, and not believe that it has the potential to bring new solutions - or at least the opportunity for them -- to a region that desperately needs them.

And though, as we've seen, technology can be used to terrorize and divide, social media, by its nature, tilts toward bringing down barriers and connecting people. Which is what is starting to happen in the Middle East.

No longer is our best hope for change in the region the far-too-often failed process of our government pressuring their governments. If fundamental change happens, it's going to come from the bottom up -- with social media fueling the transformation.

 

Available at Amazon.com:

Displacement and Dispossession in the Modern Middle East (The Contemporary Middle East)

Enemies of Intelligence

The End of History and the Last Man

The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order

The Tragedy of Great Power Politics

The End of the Free Market: Who Wins the War Between States and Corporations?

Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions to Conserve Our Most Precious Resource

Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water

Water: The Epic Struggle for Wealth, Power, and Civilization

The Great Gamble

At War with the Weather: Managing Large-Scale Risks in a New Era of Catastrophes

Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century

Dining With al-Qaeda: Three Decades Exploring the Many Worlds of the Middle East

Uprising: Will Emerging Markets Shape or Shake the World Economy

 

 

(C) 2010 Arianna Huffington