24 July 2012
The UAE has more than a million LinkedIn users, Egypt has a quarter of the region's Facebook users and the most popular for Twitter was Bahrain, according to latest data. And guess which brand was the most popular among UAE Facebook users? 

The Arab World is warming up to social media sites with astonishing speed, according to latest statistics from the Arab Social Media Report. The report is a project of the Dubai School of Government (DSG), a research and teaching institution focused on public policy in the Arab World.

Repressed for decades, Arab citizens and expatriates are taking to social media websites with vengeance to discuss freely - for the most part - political and social issues and connect with like-minded people or lock horns with people who disagree with them within the safety of the virtual world.

While governments have made effort to keep tabs on their citizens, the savvy Arab users are finding ways to avoid scrutiny. Still many Arab governments have managed to prosecute, imprison and detain activists and are putting in place regulations to curb opposition, criticism of government or unorthodox viewpoints.

Even though observers expect greater governmental regulations to police social media in the very near future, the free-wheeling, almost rebellious, nature of the virtual world, will ensure that citizens of the Arab World will use technological tools to get their views across to the wider world.

© alifarabia.com 2012