Summary
In the article "Where social media isn't ubiquitous,"
Levi (2012) brings up two reasons for the lack of prevalence of social media in
some areas. The first reason is the lack of support for the native language which
alienates users. However, there are areas where the 2nd language is supported,
allowing users to gain access. The other reason is that politics in the area
may restrict internet access or the languages supported by social network sites.
Reader Response
Levi
(2012) suggests that politics play a big role in deciding the prevalence of
social media in a country. I agree with his view that political disputes in a
country affect the prevalence of social media by disrupting internet access and
resulting in a lack of support for the language used on social networks for
fear of angering the larger political party. However, he fails to mention that
political censorship which restricts the use of social media plays an equally
important role in deciding the prevalence of social media.
Levi
(2012) suggests that 'Facebook’s policy is not to add support to a language
which is used by a national group in a contested territory – especially if
recognition is likely to annoy a powerful and large party with a vested
interest,' thus affecting the prevalence of social media. This may explain why
Facebook uses 'Traditional Chinese (Taiwan)' as a language option rather than
recognizing 'Taiwanese' as a language. Because China and Taiwan are in a
dispute regarding Taiwan's sovereignty, if Facebook recognizes 'Taiwanese' as a
language, it would seem as though Facebook is taking a political stand.
Therefore, social networking sites tend to be selective in supporting
languages, for fear of the political implications of their actions. Although
the above example seems to suggest that social media is not prevalent in such
countries, Levi (2012) implies that in countries where their language is not
recognized as they are still able to use social sites by using the languages
that are similar to their native language. In the case of Taiwan, they would
then be able to use 'Traditional Chinese (Taiwan).
Sometimes,
the political situation in the nation does not allow for social network sites
to take root due to the lack of internet access the country. Because political
disputes often take up much of a country's resources, it results in a lack of
supportive infrastructure. In the article, Levi cites Myanmar as one of
the countries that lack internet access due to the political disputes in the
country. Myanmar is one of the world’s “least connected countries”
(Greene, 2013) and this is due to the "massive coverage gaps,
glacial connection speeds, and exorbitantly high service costs, putting the
Internet beyond reach of 98% of Myanmar’s citizens." (Greene, 2013) Since
political disputes in the country makes Internet less accessible to the
majority of the citizens, it is highly impossible for social media to be
prevalent in the country.
There
are times where the government tries to prevent social media from being
ubiquitous through censorship, but it is not always successful. Censorship is
often put in place to prevent politically sensitive contents from spreading
both internally and externally. In a way, it is the government’s way of
maintaining political stability. This is evident when Egypt temporarily blocked
social media Web sites such as Twitter during its protests in early 2011.
(Bamman, O'Connor, Smith, 2012) Censorship in China through the “Great Firewall
of China” (GFW) prevents Chinese residents from accessing foreign Web sites
such as Google and Facebook. (Bamman, O'Connor, Smith, 2012) In this case, the
Chinese government set it up to prevent the Chinese citizens from accessing
foreign social network sites. However, such attempts to restrict social media
has failed as the Chinese came up with social network platforms such as
"Weibo" and "Qzone" which functions like Twitter and
Facebook.
In
conclusion, the level of accessibility to the Internet is dependent on the
politics in the country as a whole. Political disputes as well as censorship
play equally important roles in restricting access to social media, be it
successfully or unsuccessfully.
[598 words]
Reference
Bamman, D., O'Connor, B., & Smith, N. (2012). Censorship and
deletion practices in Chinese social media. First Monday, 17(3).
doi:10.5210/fm.v17i3.3943 )
Greene, W. (2013, May 11). Myanmar’s promising experiment with
Internet freedom [Web log post].Retrieved from
http://www.forbes.com/sites/techonomy/2013/11/05/myanmars-promising-experiment-with-internet-freedom/
Levi, D. (2012, July 24). Where isn't social media ubiquitous?
[Web log post].Retrieved from http://www.etondigital.com/where-isnt-social-media-ubiquitous/