To allow or not to allow?
Iran suffered, Egypt is crumbling, China is shivering due to...
President Obama and his wife Michelle maintain a set of strict rules for their children – no computers, phones or television during the week. And yes, Sasha and Malia are also encouraged to avoid social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter... After all, the most powerful man in the world evidently knows the extent of power, sensitivity and panic that these social networking sites can generate – especially with respect to his political stances. But then, Obama is an old hand, being the first US Presidential candidate to have a dedicated Internet task force for mobilising voter support through the net.
But then, the questions are: one, are social networking sites really all that powerful? And two, how should countries manage them? Indubitably, from simply being mediums to be in touch with friends, to getting evolved as a platform to raise voice, attract followers and supporters to organise protests, social networking sites have attained a never before seen political face across continents. The recency effect of this cannot be ignored. The political power of these sites was recently evidenced in 2009, when over 200 Americans organised a protest through Facebook against British Petroleum.
Mir-Hossein Moussavi, the 2009 Iranian Presidential candidate, used the net to great effect, not only during the 2009 Presidential election campaigns but also after the election results were out. This in turn added western support (clearly misplaced, we rush to add, given Ahmedinejad's mass following) to his candidature. Tunisians used social networking to organise a march for overthrowing the autocrat Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. People in Egypt are following the same path now to overthrow the pro-America pro-Israel Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. So too in Yemen, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. And if there was any further doubt left, the only reason for WikiLeaks becoming a global powerhouse is because of how their tell-all documents are easily accessible to any person across the world.
Governments – both legitimate and otherwise – are very, very worried. YouTube is banned in China, Iran, Pakistan, Brazil, Thailand, Indonesia and Morocco. Google is banned in China and Cuba. Facebook is banned in Iran, UAE, Syria, China, Vietnam, Uzbekistan and Pakistan. Wikipedia is banned in China, Pakistan and Iran. What more; you cannot search for the term 'Egypt' in China. To added effect, accessing WikiLeaks is banned in all US government offices.
So should governments be allowed to control these social networking sites? While the pro-choice argument says that freedom of information should never be curbed, a report by Simon Wiesenthal Center reveals that there has been "a 20 per cent increase in the number of hate and terrorist-abetting web sites... over the last year." Even FBI and the Counterterrorism Internet Targeting Unit have expressed similar concerns. And one hasn't even started talking about demented paedophiles using these sites.
Thus, governments should necessarily control the use of networking sites, yet a grave line has to be drawn when the same is done for protecting one's political agenda. But who defines where the line is drawn? That's where the twain shall ne'er meet. Well, so much for our deep thought; it's not going to make much of a difference to paranoid governments, is it?
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