Gathering Storm

10 www.digitaldaya.com Political Activism In the Broader Muslim World Western media andWestern governments have of- ten viewed the web as “hotbeds” of extremism – sites designed to recruit radicals as well as to spread anti-Western sentiment. This conception has lead to sanctions against the export of web-based assets from the U.S.and otherWestern nations. But,is this the true picture? Is theWorldWideWeb merely a tool being manipulated, monitored, sanc- tioned, censored and otherwise misused by radical political groups putting forth an anti-social agenda and by national leaders disseminating dis-informa- tion for the benefit of a country’s power structure? A central finding of a report called “The Berk- man Center for Internet and Society, Mapping the Arabic Blogosphere: Politics, Culture and Dissent,” published in June,2009,provides clear evidence that radical Islamic groups have not exploited the W3 successfully.The study identified a base network of approximately 35,000 active blogs, and produced a baseline assessment concluding that “...Arabic lan- guage blogs are not to any significant degree used to support extremism,preach hate,or organize terror- ist activities.In fact,support for terrorism or violent confrontation with theWest appears to be rare.” If we go beyond the blogosphere and examine the most popular social media venues,and in par- ticular the largest platform - Facebook, we find numerous political activist and advocacy groups that employ web technology to call for change – change to a more open, more inclusive and even democratic society. Looking at the online Muslim populations at a na- tional level,we see a diverse geographic make up with only two Arab countries in the top ten. Iran,Turkey, and Indonesia have the largest online populations to- day.While Facebook is censored in Iran,it is no coin- cidence that Indonesia and Turkey also rank #3 and #4 globally among top countries by number of active Facebook users right behind the U.S.and U.K. Source: World Internet Usage and Population Statistics December 31, 2009; Global Muslim Population,A Report on the Size and Distribution of theWorld’s Muslim Population October 2009 by Pew Research Center; U.S. State Department Religious Freedom Act; CIAWorld Factbook; and Digital Daya Intelligence Databases REGION MUSLIM POPULATION ONLINE MUSLIM POPULATION Iran Turkey Indonesia Pakistan Egypt Nigeria India Malaysia SaudiArabia China 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 73,777,000 73,619,000 202,867,000 174,082,000 78,513,000 78,056,000 160,945,000 16,581,000 24,949,000 21,667,000 35,781,845 25,398,555 25,358,375 18,452,692 16,566,243 12,567,016 11,266,150 10,893,717 6,761,179 6,218,429 On Facebook,we find numerous political activist and advocacy groups that employ web technology to call for change – change to a more open,more inclusive and even democratic society. Top 10 Nations By Muslim Population Online