VITTO BANEZ WRITES – Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Vine are all social apps used to connect with friends, but Afghanistan says they’re more than that.
The country aimed to promote these sites as democratizing tools through a recent summit. “Paiwand,” which translated to English means “connection,” was held on September 22-23 in order to discuss the importance and power of social media.
Eileen Guo, director of Impassion Afghanistan, was quoted saying, “We are trying to support a small but growing community of social media users in Afghanistan.” Not many people in the country have access the Internet, but surprisingly, the event had over 200 Afghan Twitter and Facebook users to discover the Internet’s impact on the country. Along with the 200 attendees, media representatives were present to explain how the youth have taken a strong affinity for social apps, mostly because of the power it gives them.
Social media gives its users the freedom to say what they want, whenever they want. With this power they can fight “all forms of legal, social and political violations.” The main goal for the summit was to demonstrate to users the methods they can use to police and expose the corruption of authorities and government officials.
The Internet has the ability to transform a country with a few “shares” or “Likes.” The possibilities for Afghanistan are nearly endless, but its in the hands of citizens to help their war-torn society.
For more information, please visit:
http://www.news24.com/Technology/News/Afghanistan-holds-social-media-summit-20130921
http://www.businessinsider.com/afghanistan-social-media-summit-2013-9
http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/12020-qpaiwandq-first-social-media-summit-held-in-kabul