Communication sites: a new Arab strategy for regulating digital content
- Susana Qosos
- BBC News Arabic
image copyright Reuters
This strategy calls for limiting the spread of false and fake news, disinformation campaigns, and campaigns to influence democratic electoral processes.
Jordan is working with other Arab countries to prepare a strategy to regulate social media content to protect users from harmful and illegal content, submitting a draft law in response to its mandate from the Council of Arab Information Ministers at its fifty-second session, which was held in Cairo in September 2022.
The Jordanian Minister of Information and Government Communication, Faisal Al-Shboul, spoke to the BBC, saying that the strategy comes within the context of “guiding” laws based on best practices and international laws, such as the European Standard Digital Services Act (DSA), with the aim of regulating the work of digital broadcasting platforms, dealing with digital taxes, and confronting false and misleading news, pornography, and the exploitation of children and reduce hate speech.
“The number of Arab social media users ranges from 170 to 175 million subscribers. This bill is based on monitoring content on the Internet by respecting Arab culture and issues, limiting hate speech and stopping attacks on privacy. This number makes us a great negotiating force to ensure the implementation of this strategy,” the minister said.
Through this costly strategy, Jordan called for limiting the spread of false and fake news, disinformation campaigns, campaigns to influence democratic electoral processes, dissemination of forged documents, establishment of criminal, terrorist and extremist organizations, violation of privacy through photographing and publishing individuals, pornographic content, and sexual exploitation of children.
image copyright Reuters
This strategy calls for limiting the spread of false and fake news, disinformation campaigns, and campaigns to influence democratic electoral processes.
What falls under “hate speech” according to the bill?
The strategy proposed by Jordan includes the following under “hate speech”: insulting Arab and Islamic civilization, insulting all beliefs, religions and minorities, provoking sectarian or racist strife, linking terrorism to Arabs and Muslims, promoting Islamophobia, inciting terrorism, crime, violence and extremism, and public incitement to commit crimes.
The draft law includes protecting Arab and Palestinian content from blocking in particular, which Jordan says was subjected to “narrowing and deletion during waves of escalation” in Jerusalem, Gaza and the occupied West Bank.
block Palestinian content
The independent BRS Foundation revealed a crackdown on digital content and that “the actions taken by Mita in May 2021 had a negative impact on the human rights of Palestinian users.” The report added that this negatively affected “the ability of Palestinians to share information and insights about their experiences as they occur.”
Data conducted by Sada Social Digital Content Monitoring Center indicated that during the year 2022, 1,230 against Palestinian content were monitored on Meta platforms – WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram – and posts were deleted from Palestinian accounts on TikTok, Soundcloud and YouTube in addition to Clubhouse, as Nidaa al-Basumi tells us. From an echo center to monitor digital content.
“With the escalation on the ground in the occupied West Bank, Jerusalem and Gaza, we have monitored a wide escalation on social media platforms in terms of deleting news published by activists and closing accounts of Palestinian activists and media professionals. Since the beginning of this year, we have monitored more than 50 inciting publications and articles on Hebrew media platforms against the Palestinians. It has not been removed so far. This reflects a clear bias against Palestinian content,” says Al-Basumi.
For its part, Meta said in September last year that it was “reviewing its policies” on violence and incitement, the way it handles political dialogue on its platforms, and what it can do about content that encourages violence against either party.
It is noteworthy that the company that owns Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp has started a feature to classify what it calls “hostile content” that is published in the Hebrew language, and is looking to develop ways to deal with content in the Arabic language and review it permanently.
technically, How effective is the strategy?
Technical expert Ayman Saleh from Cairo said that it is not the first time that an Arab country has presented a plan to monitor electronic content, adding: “Monitoring takes place in every country, but it varies from one country to another according to the legal reference of the country that monitors. The easiest way, in my personal opinion, is to train users on the best way to use the Internet and social media, and to agree on one definition for each of the terms in any law: for example, how does the state define terrorism? Is terrorism in Egypt the same as terrorism in Tunisia? Is it the same in Iraq? The idea is that it is normal for the Internet to be monitored, but the legal framework remains: there are algorithms whose task is to facilitate this task, and there are algorithms that reduce the spread of certain political ideas, which is normal, and it exists as long as there is no resistance from the sending party.”
The strategy defines the penalties imposed by law on violating social media, including a fine ranging from $100,000 to $2 million, or 6% of the total social media revenue, whichever is higher, and temporary blocking until the violations are corrected. In June of this year, this law will be discussed in its next session, and if this strategy is adopted and approved, a technical team will be assigned to negotiate with international media companies about regulating digital content in the Arab region.