[Washington Times ] Nir Boms - Facebook, with 75 million users, is quickly turning into a hotbed of activism and a cause for alarm for many autocratic regimes in the Middle East attempting to block it and curtail its reach. In April, an Egyptian youth group used Facebook to mobilize 80,000 supporters to protest the rising cost of bread. The site also played a crucial role in broadening turnout for an April 6 textile-workers' strike. In Syria, the government has banned Facebook due to an anti-regime, e-mail spam campaign channeled through the site in 2007. Before it was blocked, it had 28,000 registered Syrian members. In the Persian Gulf states, censorship attempts to block only the more threatening applications of Facebook and other Web sites like video content, photographic images and computer based phone services. The Internet provided Arab activist groups with a new medium for expression. It quickly became the preferred domain for many opposition groups who otherwise had little or no access to traditional forms of media. Add to that the growing number of political blogs that often utilize video streaming aimed at exposing the brutality of government, political corruption or police violence. The writer is vice president of the Center for Freedom in the Middle East and a fellow at The International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.
2008-06-27 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive