Shutterstock/Alexskopje. All rights reserved.Throughout the past decade, social media use has exponentially grown in the Arab world, especially in the Gulf states. They have some of the highest social media take-up rates in the Middle East, with over 80 percent of the population in each state using at least one or more social media platform and with the popularity of each platform, whether it be Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube, varying from state to state.
Contrary to popular belief, the increasing consumption rates and enthusiastic embrace of social media in the Gulf states is not a step toward political and social change. In reality, Gulf monarchies feed citizens this poisoned apple, disguising the control and censorship that their regimes continue to maintain over social media beneath the juicy temptation to use it for change. Constant enactment of repressive laws and fear tactics by the Gulf states rob their citizens of freedom of expression, creates a panoptic gaze, and results in self-censorship by social media users. Simultaneously, governments paint an image of innocence, claiming to support social media use by engaging on various social media platforms and encouraging their potential in the business world.
Under the authoritarian regimes of the Gulf states, criticism of the government, royal family or Islam on social media is off-limits and punishable by law. The role of social media in the region in exposing revolutionary ideas for change and collectivizing citizens has long been diminished by the GCC. As evidenced by the Bahraini revolution of 2011, the resulting backlash of strict cyber laws by the regime was more powerful and discouraging than the messages posted inciting revolution and change. In response to revolts and protests, the government used social media, mostly Facebook and Twitter, to track down activists, and even encouraged other Bahraini citizens to turn them in, resulting in “mass arrests, incommunicado detention, torture, military trials, [and] harsh imprisonment sentences.”
