ISIS vs. The Arab Spring – From Social Media Utopia to Dystopia

The Arab Spring unleashed western governments' enthusiasm regarding the power of the Internet for political mobilization and campaigning. The role of Social Media in giving a voice to repressed activists was widely celebrated and promoted. Today, ISIS is headlining as the social media savvy terrorist group recruiting young people from across the world to fight for their cause via Social Media. The same power of social media is now causing very different reactions amongst governments, many calling for censorship to help combat ISIS media outreach. 

The event will explore different uses of social media for mobilization in different contexts as well as government responses. In doing so it will take a global perspective and attempt to understand how and why governments seem so schizophrenic in their responses. The discussion is supposed to help us figure out take-away lessons for the development of a better Internet policy.

This discussion is part of the first meeting of the Associate Group for the project: "Europe’s contribution towards an open and free Internet | An international sector-crossing exchange" 

Due to strong interest, we have decided to open the event to an interested audience and hope you will be able to join us.  Please register via this link as we have only a limited number of seats available.