Kalev Leetaru, Forbes.com, Can We Finally Stop Terrorists From Exploiting Social Media?, 9 Oct 2018
" … for all their public discourse, the platforms have taken little concrete action, reflecting both the economic realities that they have little incentive to invest in content moderation and the real-world complication that deleting terrorist content requires understanding context, not blindly deleting any post with a given keyword."

Tags: Social media, Research

Muzmatch campaign

03 October 2018 12:25

Muzmatch campaign

The dating agency Muzmatch, who I discuss briefly in Hashtag Islam, have a new advertising campaign that picked up some traction on social media. See this article: Birmingham Mail, Why these new Muslim dating ads featuring Adele and Lionel Richie are making people laugh in Birmingham, 19 Sep 2018

Muzmatch campaign

Tags: Social media, Matchmaking, apps

Egypt: Social Media uproar on schools issue

29 September 2018 11:12

BBC News, News from Elsewhere, Mickey Mouse expelled from Egypt schools, 28 Sep 2018 " ... Governor Marzouk's decree has come in for mockery on social media, with many users arguing that the authorities need to focus more on crammed classrooms and old-fashioned teaching methods."

Tags: Egyptian Internet, Education, Social media

Facebook recruiters jailed

27 September 2018 13:03

Agence France Presse, The Daily Star, Spain court gives Facebook Daesh recruiters prison sentences, 26 Sep 2018 "A Spanish court has sentenced four people to prison terms of up to seven years for recruiting and indoctrinating supporters, mainly young Muslim women, for Daesh (ISIS) via Facebook."

Tags: Radicalisation, Social media, Spain internet

Memes and Madhabs

15 September 2018 15:42

Faisal Ali, On Religion, Memes and Madhabs 15 September 2018

"The memes started a few weeks back by Zain Siddiqi, a young Muslim from Phoenix, Arizona.
“It began as a bit of fun” he told me. “I really enjoy making memes, but I also enjoy studying Islamic law and different aspects of the religion.”
“Initially I just thought I would tweet one out and it would get 10 likes or something, and I would just go back to making mundane political commentary on whatever was happening” he continues. “But all of a sudden people were saying how much they enjoyed them and how much they were learning from them.”

Diversity in Islam approached through memes.

Tags: Islamic Law, Social Media, Research, Religious Authority

Twitter reacts to Begum Kulsoom Nawaz’s demise

12 September 2018 20:23

Express Tribune, Twitter reacts to Begum Kulsoom Nawaz’s demise, 11 Sep 2018

Tags: Politics, Nawaz Sharif

'The next billion users': Google targets India's lucrative mobile market

12 September 2018 20:19

Guardian, 'The next billion users': Google targets India's lucrative mobile market, 11 Sep 2018

"As mobile markets in developed world near saturation, Google rolls out Neighbourly, its first Indian-inspired social network"

Tags: Google, Social media

Man arrested after breakfast with woman in Saudi Arabia

11 September 2018 10:28

BBC News, Man arrested after breakfast with woman in Saudi Arabia, 10 Sep 2018 "In the 30-second video, the man and woman briefly joke about eating their breakfast together, with nobody else invited."

Contrasting views were expressed on social media from Egypt and Saudi Arabia in relation to this incident.

Tags: Saudi Internet, Egyptian Internet, Gender

Saudi Arabia Seeks Death Penalty Against Prominent Cleric

08 September 2018 17:23

Bloomberg.com, Saudi Arabia Seeks Death Penalty Against Prominent Cleric, 4 September 2018 "Salman Al-Odah was detained in September 2017. Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said at the time that the roundup of a diverse group of clerics, businessmen and intellectuals had targeted people who were “pushing an extremist agenda” with the help of foreign funding." Analysis/commentary.
I discuss Al-Odah in 'Hashtag Islam'.

Tags: Saudi Internet, Salman Al-Odah

Saudi and Amazon Deploy Twitter bots

08 September 2018 17:04

albawaba, Manufacturing Consent: Saudi and Amazon Deploy Twitter Bots to Insist They Are Virtuous, 26 August 2018
opinion/analysis (with a nod to Chomsky): "The contemporary media landscape is experiencing a shift: as news is increasingly shared through and understood by social media, powerful companies and countries are exploiting loopholes to create hordes of accounts tweeting along regime and corporate lines. In so doing, manufacture an image of consent and create an air of doubt whenever a damaging report surfaces."

Tags: Saudi Internet, Qatar internet, 'Fake News'

Hajj Representation

08 September 2018 16:32

It's been interesting to review the output of CIC Saudi Arabia on Twitter during Hajj 2018, presenting human stories within the hajj. Some examples are below (check my @garybunt Twitter feed for more):

The following video isn't on theYouTube channel yet, but here's a Twitter link: in contemporary times, the long distance journey to hajj on foot becomes all the more remarkable #hajj CIC Saudi Arabia, [@CICSaudi], "Hajj is over but for Othman AlShahin the journey is not over yet. The man who walked 450km to Hajj (the equivalent distance of #Paris to #Geneva) is now on his way home by foot. "

Tags: Saudi Internet, hajj

Virtually Islamic Blog

Gary R. Bunt

virtuallyislamic.com

Gary R. Bunt

'Hashtag Islam: How Cyber-Islamic Environments Are Transforming Religious Authority'

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