Watch What You Type: Social Media a Tool for Revolutionaries, and Increasingly, for Security Agencies

Most likely your social media accounts are already under scrutiny, even in the United States. The news is replete with headlines of just how closely authorities are monitoring social media sites. Security agencies say data analysis of social media is important, providing them with another tool to identify potential terror threats and criminal activity. But advocacy groups are concerned such surveillance goes far beyond that scope, and that often social media is monitored in countries to abuse human rights and thwart political opposition with the assistance of Western-developed technology.

“If protests are seen as a crime by some governments, and they are considered as solidarity or free expression by the public, it is a difference between public and strictly legal analyses,” says  Andrea M. Matwyshyn, assistant professor of legal studies and business ethics at the Wharton Business School.

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Internet-in-a-Suitcase Developer: Egypt Never Had an Internet Kill Switch

When the Arab Spring took hold, fearful regimes in some countries cut off Internet access to prevent protestors from organizing and getting information out to the world. One group, the Open Technology Initiative, is developing a project aimed at making the Internet available anywhere, even in the event of an official shutdown of web access. Josh King, the group’s lead technologist, speaks to Arabic Knowledge@Wharton about how ‘Internet-in-a-Suitcase’ works, and how his group is working to protect Internet freedom for people in the Middle East and domestically.

“We actually determined that in Egypt there wasn’t a technology issue,” King says. “They didn’t have an Internet kill switch. The Internet is essentially made up of these autonomous systems. The government basically called up 37 or so providers so the Internet basically stopped routing traffic to and from Egypt. It was basically a series of phone calls to network providers that happened over the course of an hour.”

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In A Fight Over Hormuz, Gulf Economies Would Be ‘Very Exposed’

The Hormuz Strait is only 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. With shipping lanes only 2 miles wide to ferry a fifth of the world’s oil trade, it is a choke point in all senses of the word. If closed or blocked, attempts to reopen the strait would concern all of the world’s powers.

The obvious implications of any closure of the Hormuz Strait are stark. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, almost 17 million barrels of oil were transported daily through the Strait last year, representing nearly 20% of global oil trade. (Most Gulf oil exports now head to Asia.) A number of analysts predict prices for oil would jump 100%.

Closely neighboring Iran, most of the Arab Gulf countries would find themselves at risk and their economies under pressure. Instead of benefiting from a windfall from sudden increases in the price of oil, they would be dealing with increased security and logistical costs, a fleeing expatriate workforce, flight of investment capital and a squeeze on resource demands.

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To stave off Arab Spring, Saudi Arabia and fellow Gulf countries spend billions

Possessing 20% of the world’s proven petroleum reserves, Saudi Arabia has long played the expected role of benefactor among its fellow Arab and Muslim countries. With a total aid budget of US$3.1 billion in 2009, Saudi Arabia keeps one of the largest humanitarian aid budgets in the world.

Much of that aid went to hardship-struck Muslim nations, including Pakistan, Somalia and the Palestinians. But since the Arab Spring took root this year, Saudi Arabia has spread its largesse among its own citizens and Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) neighbors — a large part of US$150 billion worth of social welfare spending in the region since the unrest began, according to a new report by Merrill Lynch Bank of America.

Only days following the collapse of former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s regime in February, for instance, Saudi Arabia announced a social welfare package for its citizens worth US$10.7 billion, featuring pay raises for government employees, new jobs and loan forgiveness schemes. By the end of the month, the handouts totaled US$37 billion. In March, the spending incredulously continued, as Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah heralded an additional US$93 billion in social spending.

Such generosity was no coincidence, noted the report’s authors. “The initial response of GCC policymakers [to the Arab revolt] has been to sharply increase current spending to accommodate social pressures and to pledge intra-regional fiscal transfers to less endowed members,” wrote Jean-Michel Saliba, Middle East and North Africa economist for Merrill Lynch Bank of America.

In addition to Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) capital of Abu Dhabi put forward plans to spend nearly US$2 billion to provide housing loans to Emiratis, while Qatar announced this month an US$8 billion payout in wage, salary and benefits increases for all state and military personnel. Oman and Bahrain have also indicated they would increase social spending by the billions this year.

Aside from raises for state employees, the spending in these Gulf states will go towards infrastructure and social amenities, such as roads, schools and hospitals, and further subsidies on food, water and power consumption for citizens.

Saliba and his colleagues cautioned that the outsized spending did not address the long-term nature of the problems presented by the Arab Spring, such as high unemployment. “This [social spending] has averted potential disquiet over governance in most countries, though, over a longer-term horizon, economic reforms will be needed to buoy private sector growth and job creation.”

Saudi Arabia’s generosity has been criticized as a means for the Arab world’s most populous country to make political gains and spread influence. The Merrill Lynch report also does not take into account the cost incurred by Saudi Arabia to send its troops into neighboring Bahrain to help quell a Shiite uprising there — another action to prevent revolt from reaching its own borders.

But in a recent analysis of the Arab Spring for Arabic Knowledge@Wharton, Wharton professor Stuart Diamond said the spending by the Saudis demonstrated their understanding of negotiation. “They understood that for many people, it was about Maslow’s needs triangle: that is, basic life necessities such as food, shelter and health mattered most. So the stipends that the Saudi government gave helped to quell disturbances,” he said.

Diamond added Saudi spending bought not only continued loyalty from its citizens. “What they have mostly bought was time. For now, the populace will be satisfied with their recent bonuses. But that does not amount to structural and sustainable change, the kind that would significantly improve everyone’s quality of life on a continuing basis. The Saudi government should take this opportunity to include more people in decision-making and develop new industries that give more people a chance at a better life over the long term.”

Wharton’s Stuart Diamond: Arab Spring has provided little value for people

When protestors first took to the streets across the Middle East early this year, the world watched as thousands of Arabs demanded an end to governments that were corrupt and self-serving. Dubbed the Arab Spring, it was a movement propelled by technology, imbued with optimism for change, and aiming to create a more equitable economy.

After the initial blush with relatively peaceful demonstrations in Tunisia and Egypt, the social revolution has led to strife rather than reform, as Yemen, Bahrain and Egypt have all witnessed bloody protests, while Syria and Libya have been plunged into all-out civil war. Much of this violent turn of events, says Wharton’s Stuart Diamond, is because of dashed expectations.

“Entrepreneurs know that the idea is just the start; without building out an enterprise, no value is created,” says Diamond, who teaches negotiation courses at Wharton, and is a Pulitzer Prize winner and best-selling author of Getting More: How To Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World. “This is the problem with the Arab Spring. Now that many have more power, they actually have to do the hard work to build out a different sort of economy.”

Another failing of the movement is the emphasis on past grievances — putting Egypt’s former president Hosni Mubarak on trial, Diamond says, is the wrong way to start rebuilding Egypt. “Negotiate with him on what he and others in his circle will provide,” he suggests. “Leave them with something to get them to agree. Now that would better help in building a new Egypt than a trial of a sick old man.”

For those challenging leadership, such as protestors in Syria, the best thing would be to avoid confrontation, he adds. “If Syrian protestors stop the violence, all the negative focus will be on the existing government, which will not be able to withstand the continuing criticism. The goal of the protestors now should be to document everything and keep telling the world.”

Diamond adds that the situation in Libya, “is perhaps the best example today of the stupidity of not negotiating … Libya will never be able to provide a better life for its citizens until the war stops. And the quickest way to do that is negotiate with Qaddafi.”

Read the story here on Arabic Knowledge@Wharton

Previously:  Stuart Diamond on Middle East Reform: Organize, Start Small, Replicate and Negotiate

Bloody Lesson from Libya and Bahrain: Guns Won’t Halt Revolution

Bahrain is regarded as a regional model for reform and hosts the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet in the Gulf. Libya, long considered a pariah state, only rejoined the world community after ending illegal weapons programs and denouncing terrorism. But because of the brutal repression inflicted on protestors in both countries, the two now share a negative perception, say Wharton professors and other academics. This will undo any past progress in global politics and markets. Both governments will likely fall as a result, these experts add, a lesson for leaders that violence is an untenable response to calls for reform.

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