Reader Response Draft 1

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 being lack of support for the native language and the second being the lack of Internet access. There are areas where the 2nd language is supported, allowing the users to gain access, but in other areas, it is purposely omitted to prevent political implications.

Reader Response

Levi (2012) suggests that the lack of prevalence of social media is due to the political situation of the countries. Indeed, political disputes in the country would affect the prevalence of social media; these disputes may result in a disruption of internet access and a lack of support for the language used on social networks for fear of angering the larger political party. However political situations that arise in the form of censorship will also result in the lack of prevalence of social media in the country.

There are times where 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. In the article, Levi cites Myanmar as one of the countries that lack internet access due to the political situation 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 Internet is not accessible to the majority of the citizens, it is impossible for social media to be prevalent in the country.

Political disputes within a nation, as mentioned by Levi, would result in the lack of prevalence of a social media in that particular nation. An example would be the dispute between China and Taiwan. If Facebook were to acknowledge that Taiwanese is a language and list it as one of language that it supports, it could actually result in political implications. The Chinese may see this as Facebook taking a political stand and Facebook may be embroiled in this internal dispute. Therefore, because of the political implications of an action, social network sites may choose not to support certain language to prevent troubles upon themselves.

Sometimes, the government tries to prevent social media from being ubiquitous through censorship.  I feel that 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 most evident when Egypt temporarily blocked social media Web sites such as Twitter during its protests in early 2011. (Bamman, O'Connor, Smith, 2012) In China, the tough censorship known as 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, I would not say that social media is not ubiquitous in China as the Chinese have come up with their own social network platforms such as “Wei bo” and  which is a mix between Facebook and Twitter and “Qzone” which is very much like Facebook.

In conclusion, the level of accessibility to the Internet is highly dependent on the political situation of the country, therefore, politics play a significant role in deciding the prevalence of social media in a country. 

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/

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/

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 )