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Terri Soifer

Taking Stock of the Arab Revolutions | Marc Lynch - 3 views

lynch.foreignpolicy.com/..._stock_of_the_arab_revolutions

MENA

shared by Terri Soifer on 07 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • EGYPT Mubarak Leave At Last MUBARAK Worst Speech Ever OBAMA Still Trying for Egyptian Change
  • The greatest structural change of the last two months is not the fall of Mubarak but  the region-wide empowerment of Arab pu
  • All of this is playing out in a unified political space, shaped primarily by al-Jazeera and social media and by the demand by Arabs of all stripes to now be heard and felt. 
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • rom the perspective of Arab publics, this is all a single story of challenge and revolt in which all are involved.
  • Yemenis don't watch Tunisia as spectators but as participants,
  • Ed Webb on 08 Mar 11
     
    Good job pulling out the key argument, which is consistent with his book. That last point is particularly nice.
Michael Fisher

Disappointment at Sharm al-Sheikh | Marc Lynch - 0 views

lynch.foreignpolicy.com/...appointment_at_sharm_al_sheikh

Marc Lynch Hillary Clinton Obama Administration Israel-Palestine Foreign Policy International Relations Israel Palestine

shared by Michael Fisher on 03 Mar 09 - No Cached
  • Clinton prefers to double-down on the shopworn "West Bank first, Fatah only" policy which has been conspiciously failing for the last two years.  The concrete manifestation:  two-thirds of the U.S. contribution to the reconstruction of Gaza will go not to Gaza but to the West Bank.
  • This all seems stuck in a bit of time-warp.  It ignores the two year history of Israeli and Western failure under the identical discourse and policy to deliver meaningful benefits to the Palestinian Authority or the West Bank. It ignores the reality of Hamas power in Gaza, and the reality of Fatah's limited capabilities and legitimacy (which were not enhanced, shall we say, by Abbas's performance during the Gaza war).  And it ignores the promise of the dramatic moves towards Arab reconciliation and the accomplishment of a tentative Hamas-Fatah accord last week
  • Michael Fisher on 03 Mar 09
     
    Abu Aardvark (Marc Lynch) shows why Secretary of State Clinton's diplomacy will not change the situation in Israel/Palestine. He shows that not only is Israeli-Palestinian American policy important but also Hamas-Fatah policy.
Ed Webb

Watching Egypt (but not on Al Jazeera) | Marc Lynch - 4 views

lynch.foreignpolicy.com/...ypt_and_lebanon_and_the_pa_and

Egypt internet politics twitter socialmedia Tunisia al-jazeera television Arab Lynch

shared by Ed Webb on 25 Jan 11 - No Cached
  • One key factor was missing, though, at least early on. Al Jazeera has played a vital, instrumental role in framing this popular narrative by its intense, innovative coverage of Tunisia and its explicit broadening of that experience to the region. Its coverage today has been frankly baffling, though. During the key period when the protests were picking up steam, Al Jazeera aired a documentary cultural program on a very nice seeming Egyptian novelist and musical groups, and then to sports. Now (10:30am EST) it is finally covering the protests in depth, but its early lack of coverage may hurt its credibility. I can't remember another case of Al Jazeera simply punting on a major story in a political space which it has owned.
  • More broadly, it's astonishing how much is now in motion in Arab politics after such a long period of seeming stagnation. There's a vivid sense of an era coming to a close and an uncertain new vista opening. Even if Al Jazeera's release of the so-called "Palestine Papers" doesn't bring down Abu Mazen's negotiating team or the PA it feels like the autopsy of a long-dead peace process. Hezbollah's Parliamentary maneuver to bring down the Hariri government and replace him with veteran politician and businessman Najib Miqati, a response to the Special Tribunal's reported indictments which has sparked violent protests by Hariri backers, may mean an end to the era of U.S. alliance with a March 14-led Lebanon. It's hard to know where to focus --- but in fact I continue to see these seemingly unrelated events as part of a broader story of the crumbling of an Arab status quo which has long seemed unsustainable.
  • 3pm:  Al-Jazeera's lack of coverage of the protests has become a major story.   It doesn't seem to have gotten any better since this morning --- since getting back on line I've seen an episode of a talk show, more Palestine Papers, and only short snippets of breaking news on Egypt.  Al-Arabiya apparently hasn't done any better.  My Twitter feed and email are full of comments like "AJ Arabic is covering childrens gymnastics programs in Indonesia right now. Good call." (@mwhanna1) and "Exposed. Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya's failure in covering #Jan25" (@SultanAlQassemi).   Egyptian activists are complaining bitterly, and most seem to think that Mubarak cut a deal with the Qatari and Saudi governments. 
Ed Webb

My first take on The Speech | Marc Lynch - 0 views

lynch.foreignpolicy.com/...the_speech

lynch Obama Cairo Islam diplomacy publicdiplomacy

shared by Ed Webb on 05 Jun 09 - No Cached
  • the rollout of the speech already stands as one of the most successful public diplomacy and strategic communications campaigns I can ever remember -- and hopefully a harbinger of what is to come.  This wasn't a one-off Presidential speech.  The succession of statements (al-Arabiya interview, Turkish Parliament, message to the Iranians) and the engagement on the Israeli-Palestinian policy front set the stage.  Then the White House unleashed the full spectrum of new media engagement for this speech -- SMS and Twitter updates, online video, and online chatroom environment, and more.  This will likely be followed up upon to put substance on the notion of this as a "conversation" rather than an "address" -- which along with concrete policy progress will be the key to its long-term impact, if any. 
  • It's not like Bush left a legacy of active democratization which Obama is supposedly abandoning.  Rather than repeat the old buzzwords to please those invested in the democracy promotion industry, Obama did something more important by addressing head on some of the most vexing issues which have plagued American thinking about democracy in the region. This, to my eye, was the key statement:  America respects the right of all peaceful and law-abiding voices to be heard around the world, even if we disagree with them. And we will welcome all elected, peaceful governments - provided they govern with respect for all their people.  As I noted yesterday, that suggests clearly that the U.S. will accept the democratic participation of peaceful Islamist movements as long as they abstain from violence --and respect their electoral victories provided that they commit to the democratic process.  He made a passionate defense of that latter point, that victors must demonstrate tolerance and respect for minorities and that elections alone are not enough.  But he clearly did not prejudge participants in the electoral game -- the old canard about Islamists wanting "one man, one vote, one time" thankfully, and significantly, did not appear.
Ed Webb

Should we support internet activists in the Middle East? | Marc Lynch - 0 views

lynch.foreignpolicy.com/...t_activists_in_the_middle_east

egypt blog bloggers blogging rights repression Jordan aid USA Lynch

shared by Ed Webb on 24 Apr 09 - No Cached
  • In many ways it was a pessimistic talk, which pushed back against expectations that new media technologies like blogs, Facebook or Twitter were going to radically change politics in the short or medium term.  Over the longer term, there is a more real transformative potential, especially for the individuals who use the technologies.  But analysts need to not be confused by the bright sparkling lights of fancy new technology or assume that it will have effects independently of the real lines of power and politics. 
  • politics come first, and that technology alone can have only a very limited impact in the face of authoritarian states.  Where internet activists have had a significant impact in Arab countries, it has usually been tied to distinct political opportunities – such as the Kwuaiti royal transition or elections --- or else led by people who were activists first and used technology as a tool.  New media did help activists in Egypt, Bahrain and elsewhere to punch well above their weight for a while... but eventually the regimes caught up and the real balance of power showed. 
  • I have a hard time thinking of a communications technology more poorly suited for organizing high-risk political collective action than Facebook. 
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  • Neither the United States as a government nor civil society-based supporters of the activists have been able to do much to help them when they run afoul of the authorities.  And the more that they are encouraged to develop political strategies, the more likely they are to run into such problems.  We often have a habit of issuing bad checks to these people, egging them on and encouraging them to take risky actions but then failing to effectively protect them.  If the Facebook groups had actually managed to get people out into the streets earlier this month, what were their fans in the West prepared to do when the police started beating them up and getting them fired from their jobs or expelled from school?  Not much.  If citizen journalists expose corruption in a local government office, who is going to protect them when they are sued for libel or beaten up for their efforts… keeping in mind that they enjoy no legal protections whatsoever as ‘citizen journalists’.
  • the point should be to create the kind of legal and political environments in which internet activists – and all citizens – can operate without fearing the worst consequences, rather than encouraging them to take such risks without any protection.  But I throw this out for discussion.  What do we owe the activists who we encourage?  What is the best way of paying that debt? 
  • Ed Webb on 24 Apr 09
     
    Some important questions for us to ponder as the semester winds to a close.
Ed Webb

Where Countries Are Tinderboxes and Facebook Is a Match - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...facebook-sri-lanka-riots.html

Facebook socialmedia Sri Lanka violence

shared by Ed Webb on 21 Apr 18 - Cached
  • they had shared and could recite the viral Facebook memes constructing an alternate reality of nefarious Muslim plots. Mr. Lal called them “the embers beneath the ashes” of Sinhalese anger
  • the forces of social disruption that have followed Facebook’s rapid expansion in the developing world, whose markets represent the company’s financial future. For months, we had been tracking riots and lynchings around the world linked to misinformation and hate speech on Facebook, which pushes whatever content keeps users on the site longest — a potentially damaging practice in countries with weak institutions.
  • Time and again, communal hatreds overrun the newsfeed — the primary portal for news and information for many users — unchecked as local media are displaced by Facebook and governments find themselves with little leverage over the company. Some users, energized by hate speech and misinformation, plot real-world attacks.
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  • Facebook’s newsfeed played a central role in nearly every step from rumor to killing
  • Facebook officials, they say, ignored repeated warnings of the potential for violence, resisting pressure to hire moderators or establish emergency points of contact
  • the imagined Ampara, which exists in rumors and memes on Sinhalese-speaking Facebook, is the shadowy epicenter of a Muslim plot to sterilize and destroy Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese majority
  • The mob, hearing confirmation, beat him, destroyed the shop and set fire to the local mosque.
  • As Facebook pushes into developing countries, it tends to be initially received as a force for good.In Sri Lanka, it keeps families in touch even as many work abroad. It provides for unprecedented open expression and access to information. Government officials say it was essential for the democratic transition that swept them into office in 2015.But where institutions are weak or undeveloped, Facebook’s newsfeed can inadvertently amplify dangerous tendencies. Designed to maximize user time on site, it promotes whatever wins the most attention. Posts that tap into negative, primal emotions like anger or fear, studies have found, produce the highest engagement, and so proliferate
  • in developing countries, Facebook is often perceived as synonymous with the internet and reputable sources are scarce, allowing emotionally charged rumors to run rampant
  • Last year, in rural Indonesia, rumors spread on Facebook and WhatsApp, a Facebook-owned messaging tool, that gangs were kidnapping local children and selling their organs. Some messages included photos of dismembered bodies or fake police fliers. Almost immediately, locals in nine villages lynched outsiders they suspected of coming for their children.
  • Near-identical social media rumors have also led to attacks in India and Mexico. Lynchings are increasingly filmed and posted back to Facebook, where they go viral as grisly tutorials
  • No organization has ever had to police billions of users in a panoply of languages.
  • Before Facebook, he said, officials facing communal violence “could ask media heads to be sensible, they could have their own media strategy.”
  • Desperate, the researchers flagged the video and subsequent posts using Facebook’s on-site reporting tool.Though they and government officials had repeatedly asked Facebook to establish direct lines, the company had insisted this tool would be sufficient, they said. But nearly every report got the same response: the content did not violate Facebook’s standards. Advertisement Continue reading the main story “You report to Facebook, they do nothing,” one of the researchers, Amalini De Sayrah, said. “There’s incitements to violence against entire communities and Facebook says it doesn’t violate community standards.”
  • Facebook still appears to employ few Sinhalese moderators. A call to a third-party employment service revealed that around 25 Sinhalese moderator openings, first listed last June, remain unfilled. The jobs are based in India, which has few Sinhalese speakers.
  • “We’re a society, we’re not just a market.”
  • Its gamelike interface rewards engagement, delivering a dopamine boost when users accrue likes and responses, training users to indulge behaviors that win affirmation.
  • the greatest rush comes by attacking outsiders: The other sports team. The other political party. The ethnic minority.
  • Mass media has long been used to mobilize mass violence. Facebook, by democratizing communication tools, gives anyone with a smartphone the ability to broadcast hate.
  • Mr. Weerasinghe posted a video that showed him walking the shops of a town called Digana, warning that too many were owned by Muslims, urging Sinhalese to take the town back. The researchers in Colombo reported his video to Facebook, along with his earlier posts, but all remained online.
  • the government temporarily blocked most social media. Only then did Facebook representatives get in touch with Sri Lankan officials, they say. Mr. Weerasinghe’s page was closed the same day.
  • officials rushed out statements debunking the sterilization rumors but could not match Facebook’s influence
  • Despite criticism and concerns from civil society groups, the company has done little to change its strategy of pushing into developing societies with weak institutions and histories of social instability, opening up information spaces where anger and fear often can dominate
  • From October to March, Facebook presented users in six countries, including Sri Lanka, with a separate newsfeed prioritizing content from friends and family. Posts by professional media were hidden away on another tab.“While this experiment lasted, many of us missed out on the bigger picture, on more credible news,” said Nalaka Gunawardene, a Sri Lankan media analyst. “It’s possible that this experiment inadvertently spread hate views in these six countries.”
  • government officials said, they face the same problem as before. Facebook wields enormous influence over their society, but they have little over Facebook.
  • Facebook had turned him into a national villain. It helped destroy his business, sending his family deeply into debt. And it had nearly gotten him killed.But he refused to abandon the platform. With long, empty days in hiding, he said, “I have more time and I look at Facebook much more.”“It’s not that I have more faith that social media is accurate, but you have to spend time and money to go to the market to get a newspaper,” he said. “I can just open my phone and get the news instead.”“Whether it’s wrong or right, it’s what I read.”
Ed Webb

WASHINGTON: Study finds bias in Internet postings about Syria's civil war | Syria | McC... - 1 views

www.mcclatchydc.com/...bias-in-internet-postings.html

Syria media socialmedia language languages Arabic English analysis propaganda journalism news

shared by Ed Webb on 03 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • After reviewing more than 38 million Twitter posts about the Syrian conflict, a team of Middle East scholars from The George Washington University and American University concluded that rather than an objective account of what’s taken place, social media posts have been carefully curated to represent a specific view of the war. It said the skewing of the social media view of the conflict has been amplified by the way more traditional news outlets make use of the postings – for example, passing along social media posts written in English over those written in Arabic. The analysts studied tweets that mentioned Syria in English or Arabic from the start of 2011 through April 2013. They then analyzed how “traditional” forms of media, such as newspapers, used social media to supplement their coverage of the conflict.
  • Because journalists were largely unable to get direct access to the events in Syria at the start of the conflict, many relied on “citizen journalism,” or accounts from Syrians who said they’d witnessed events firsthand, often posted on social media, said Marc Lynch
  • as the uprising continued, tweets in Arabic began to dramatically outpace tweets in English. From January 2011 to June 2011, English-language tweets were most common, but Arabic tweets made up almost 75 percent of all tweets about Syria just a year later.
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  • Syrian activists became adept at crafting a specific message
  • By focusing only on English-language social media posts, mainstream media have frequently distorted the focus of the Syrian story, the report’s authors claimed.
  • “We here in Washington, especially, we think that the United States is really important; we think that American policy is the single most important thing about Syria, and what Obama does is what everybody wants to know about,” Lynch said. “The Arabic-speaking community does not care about Obama, for the most part. They don’t think American policy is all that important; they’re focused on other things.”Mentions of President Barack Obama, for example, are sporadic in Arabic tweets. By March 2013, Arabic tweets about Syria only mentioned Obama 0.28 percent of the time, compared to 4.28 percent of English tweets.
Michael Fisher

All aboard the Arab reconciliation train | Marc Lynch - 0 views

lynch.foreignpolicy.com/...econciliation_picking_up_steam

Middle East Israel Palestine Hamas Fatah foreign policy international relations

shared by Michael Fisher on 19 Feb 09 - No Cached
  • Michael Fisher on 19 Feb 09
     
    Recent changes in the Arab-Israeli conflict have been notable. There are at least four major destinations that the various players in the Middle East are mooting about in public, to which the U.S. may soon need to respond.
Robert Allaway

Intervening in the Libyan tragedy | Marc Lynch - 1 views

lynch.foreignpolicy.com/...the_libyan_horror

intervening protests USA NATO Libya abuaardvark

shared by Robert Allaway on 21 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • The appropriate comparison is Bosnia or Kosovo, or even Rwanda where a massacre is unfolding on live television and the world is challenged to act
  • Making that credible could mean the declaration and enforcement of a no-fly zone over Libya, presumably by NATO, to prevent the use of military aircraft against the protestors. It could also mean a clear declaration that members of the regime and military will be held individually responsible for any future deaths
Ed Webb

Elon Musk: Good for MENA Twitter? - by Marc Lynch - 0 views

abuaardvark.substack.com/...lon-musk-good-for-mena-twitter

authoritarianism media opinion analysis twitter MENA socialmedia censorship

shared by Ed Webb on 05 May 22 - No Cached
  • The MENA online ecosystem is not a good place for freedoms or civil debate right now, to say the least. The Digital Authoritarianism collection I edited last year makes for grim reading. Many MENA states have set in place legal frameworks criminalizing online dissent (and a lot more than just dissent). The pervasive use of Israeli-designed digital surveillance tools has turbocharged the ability of autocratic regimes to spy on their citizens (or on anyone else). Online discourse is plagued by armies of bots and trolls. And the suppression of Palestinian activist content shows how social media platforms have proven an uneven playing field when it comes to content moderation. Apocalyptic takes on what Musk might do really do need to grapple with how terrible things already are.
  • Musk explained his approach to free speech in a recent tweet: “By “free speech”, I simply mean that which matches the law.” That may sound good to some people in an American context, I suppose. But in the MENA, it would play directly into the hands of authoritarian regimes which have spent years constructing elaborate legal and normative frameworks to criminalize online dissent. Those laws don’t just ban violent hate speech, but range from political dissent, criticism of royal family members or the military, human rights monitoring, even dancing on TikTok. Following these cybercrime laws as a guide to content moderation would entail censoring a wide range of legitimate political speech - the opposite, presumably, of what an avowed free speech advocate would want to see.
  • If new Twitter policies drawn from the right wing understanding of the American online arena were applied consistently in the MENA context, it could potentially ease the suppression of Palestinian voices. I mean, that wouldn’t be the intention and it probably wouldn’t, but it’s worth thinking about.
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  • if he really means requiring users to authenticate their identity with some form of legal ID, that would mean a world of trouble for users in highly repressive MENA states. Many activists and dissidents face extreme consequences should their identities be discovered. So do many LGBTQ, atheist, or other users from marginalized or even criminalized communities
  • The bot armies really are annoying, and if Musk could figure out a way to remove them then the MENA region would benefit greatly. Disinformation, harrassment and abuse (especially of women), polluting hashtags to make conversation impossible, obnoxious trolling, intimidation… all of these have contributed to making MENA Twitter at worst almost unusable, and at best a highly distorted reflection of reality. Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran are among the worst offenders among states, but the problem is endemic
  • Sure, if Musk actually does end up taking over and running Twitter (big ifs, still), he probably wouldn’t actually have those positive effects, at least not intentionally. But it’s still tempting to read some real significance into his intriguing little public spat with Waleed bin Talal, where he asked “What are the Kingdom’s views on journalistic freedom of speech?”
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