From: Biniam Tekle (biniamt@dehai.org)
Date: Thu Jan 07 2010 - 12:12:38 EST
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/06/twitter_vs_terror?page=full
Twitter vs. Terror
How the U.S. State Department should enable and encourage social-networking
sites in the global fight for freedom.
BY U.S. SEN. RICHARD G. LUGAR | JANUARY 6, 2010
During the turmoil that followed Iran's disputed 2009 presidential election,
thousands of opposition supporters and other protesters communicated and
organized through Twitter. So important was this social networking site to
supporting the pro-democracy "green movement" that the U.S. State Department
contacted corporate representatives of Twitter to ask them to delay a
routine maintenance shutdown of the microblogging site.
In the strife-torn Democratic Republic of the Congo, U.S. officials are
working with radio and cell-phone operators to reach isolated militia
fighters with messages from former combatants now urging them to put down
their arms and return to civilian life.
In Pakistan, the State Department paid for 24 million text messages as a way
to help support a new mobile-phone-based social network, Humari Awaz, or
"Our Voice." The gesture helps increase U.S. government engagement with the
Pakistani people, strengthens communities, and can assist small businesses
in gaining better market information.
These are just some of the latest examples of what is being called
"21st-century statecraft," using the capabilities of modern communications
and social networking technologies to win hearts and minds and improve the
American image abroad. It represents an important leap forward from
traditional U.S. outreach efforts, such as Voice of America and Radio Free
Europe.
The adroit use of social networking sites, such as Twitter, Facebook, and
others, coupled with text messages and increasingly widespread mobile-phone
technology, can help lend support to existing grassroots movements for
freedom and civil rights, connect people to information, and help those in
closed societies communicate with the outside world. It also promises to
give a strong economic boost to small entrepreneurs and the rural poor. The
World Bank estimates that for every 10 percent increase in the number of
mobile-phone users in a developing country, there is nearly a 1 percent
increase in its economic output.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has championed the use of communications
technology in diplomacy and development. In November in Morocco, she
announced the "Civil Society 2.0" initiative, which will offer training and
advice to local nongovernmental organizations around the world on how to use
the Internet and other digital media to organize, communicate, and be more
effective.
She has also appointed a special advisor for innovation, Alec Ross, to
examine ways to employ communications technology to enhance traditional
diplomatic and development activities. In a recent speech, he said that the
State Department is using "these new connection technologies to engage and
empower our interlocutors in new and different ways that are consistent with
our foreign policy goals."
The applications vary widely. In Mexico, for instance, where drug-related
crime and violence is at crisis level, the United States is helping set up a
mobile-phone-based system so citizens can report crimes and tips
anonymously. In Afghanistan, the State Department and the Pentagon are
working with the private sector to expand mobile-phone banking, an
innovation that has been successful in Africa. The hope is to improve the
finances of people in rural conflict areas. When violence displaced up to 2
million people from Pakistan's Swat Valley, the State Department quickly set
up a mobile texting system so concerned Americans could make $5 donations
for refugee relief with just a few keystrokes.
Technology offers new ways to perform the traditional task of spreading the
American message. During President Barack Obama's major Africa speech in
Ghana last year, for instance, the government offered SMS texts of his
remarks in English and French to cell-phone users across Africa and enabled
them to post questions and comments.
But social networking technologies are more often used to enable individuals
across a country, or across the globe, to interact, engage, and become
empowered. Although this means that our government will not be able to
control the message as well as it might with conventional public diplomacy
tools, I believe it is a risk worth taking. Terrorists and other
anti-American propagandists have for some time been using the Internet and
other techniques to communicate and recruit. America needs to beat them at
their own game, especially since we invented most of the technology.
I would encourage the administration and our diplomats to be nimble,
flexible, and innovative as they pursue a wide range of foreign-policy
initiatives that use these new communication and connection techniques.
Diplomacy and development are our best means of winning the global war of
ideas, and we must come to the battle armed with the most modern tools at
our disposal.
Richard G. Lugar is the ranking member on the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations
Committee. You can follow him on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Flickr.
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