Social media in the Arab world

© Getty Images / Maskot

Social media: A decade of leading change in the Arab world

by Doaa Soliman, DW head of Online and Social Media, Arabic Service

Ten years ago, when Arab youth gathered in the streets of Tunis, Cairo, Damascus, Baghdad and Amman, they had not only found their voices, but they had also stumbled upon the power of social media. It changed the game and the faces of the region and is still doing so a decade later.

While the Arab Spring flourished on the shoulders of social media, namely Twitter and Facebook at the time, the significance it has today is multi-layered.

The platforms with hundreds of millions of accounts in the Arab region have changed the patterns of communication and even the language used by younger generations. Moreover they have also exposed corruption, political misconduct, societal and legal injustices, and led to actual changes in the legal systems in many countries.

Windows into closed societies

One significant role for social media in the last few years has been the opening of a room for women across the region to highlight their plights. Campaigns that started on social media led to changes in the legal systems on issues such as FGM (female genital mutilation), domestic violence, rapists marrying their victims, sexual harassment and child marriage.

But it did not only give voices to the voiceless or “less fortunate,” but it has also been opening a debate in the most conservative Arab countries and communities about diversity, human rights, equality and freedoms.

Surprisingly enough, it also created a window into previously closed societies, such as some Arab Gulf countries. For years we witnessed Saudi Women raging one battle after the other against the Wilayah system (male guardianship), asking for equal rights and denouncing domestic violence.

In 2019, the whole world watched as 18-year-old Saudi Rahaf al-Qunun managed to escape her home country, seeking asylum in Canada in fear for her life after renouncing Islam. Rahaf’s escape journey attracted worldwide attention with more than half a million tweets using the #SaveRahaf hashtag. Such attention was made possible thanks to the high penetration rate of Twitter in the Arab Gulf societies.

Another complicated story was revealed one year earlier also thanks to social media. In 2018, a video published on YouTube showed Princess Latifa, the daughter of Dubai ruler and UAE Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, saying she’s being held against her will.

The video prompted a series of international reactions across the world. The effort to #FreeLatifa is ongoing.

Counter measures and new possibilities

Despite their significant role as catalysts for change, social media platforms constantly raise concerns about privacy, data protection, governmental surveillance, in addition to warnings of possible negative impacts on mental health, especially for adolescents and young adults.

Campaigns on social media led to changes in the legal systems on issues such as FGM and child marriage.

Around 90 percent of Arab youths use some form of social media, in comparison to the global population use of under 60 percent, according to a recent paper published by the University of Oregon.

While the vast majority of Egyptian users—around 90 percent—favour Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter take the lead in the Gulf region.

This popularity triggered a series of counter measures from governments across the region, leading in its turn to further legal changes that put freedom of expression on social media under more fire.

Activists, journalists and social media influencers are not only behind bars in a number of Arab countries, but some have even lost their lives for posting views that oppose their governments or differ from the wider masses. In Iraq alone, two antigovernment activists were shot dead in 2020 because of their vocal posts. And an Instagram influencer with close to 3 million followers was shot dead in 2018 in Baghdad for challenging societal norms.

With so many variables to understanding the roles and impact of social media in the demographically young Arab societies, one thing has been proven time and time again: social media enables change; the platforms constantly evolve to meet the needs of users, and open more and more windows for new possibilities and changeability.

© unsplash

Snapchat

From January to March 21, 2021, DW reached an average of 24 million views on Snapchat among its partners. DW’s strongest partner in the Gulf region is 7awi, one of the most widely used content providers in the region on Snapchat. The strategy is to source suitable web videos, also published on Facebook and Instagram, and to place them on strong Snapchat pages.

Snapchat is a platform with a particularly young and predominantly female target group. It is the apt platform, next to TikTok, to reach DW’s newly defined target group (14 – 40 years).