The Courage to Go Online

This Thursday and Friday I will be participating in the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit in New York City. Jared Cohen, who is a member of the Secretary of State's Policy Planning staff and organized the event, took some time to sit down with me and answer a few questions about this special summit.

Explain what the Alliance of Youth Movements Summit is all about?  

The Alliance of Youth Movements Summit is about scaling civic innovation.  All around the world, young people are using online, mobile, and digital platforms as tools for empowerment against violence and oppression.  These young leaders are the first pioneers of a new wave of civil society where young people no longer require office spaces, rent checks, paid staff, or paperwork to be able to form a robust organization or movement.  Bringing these organizations together in one place for the first time is a key achievement of the summit.  But it is even more than this.  The 17 delegate organizations coming have also worked collaboratively to produce a field manual on how to use new media to build grassroots movements.  This Field Manual will be available in multiple languages, both in hard copy and in an exciting and interactive online form, which includes a series of how-to videos.  This Field Manual will stand in stark contrast to the how-to guides that groups like Al-Qaeda and others have produced and given to young people.  Using this field manual, these young leaders will unite under a brand new Alliance of Youth Movements organization to push best practices out to civil society organizations around the world and inspire new movements.  Information on the Alliance of Youth Movements is available at youthmovements.howcast.com

In January, James Glassman, Under Secretary of State for Public Affairs told Fox News: "Al-Qaeda was eating our lunch on the Internet." Have youth groups been able to turn the tide? 

Because of civil society 2.0 organizations-- youth movements that are leveraging online, mobile, and digital tools/platforms -- young people are turning the tide on this.  Al Qaeda and other violent extremist groups are using the Internet the old-fashioned way while these groups are using it the new, Web 2.0 way.  This is the comparative advantage that we have over the terrorists.  If we invite the kind of conversation, this kind of back and forth, that social networking provides, we have an edge over those who simply dictate monolithic and violent ideas. The vast majority of young people are fed up with the violence we have seen in Mumbai, Islamabad, Mexico, and elsewhere.  They are standing up to oppose what is happening in the world--much as young people stood up in the 1960s for change.  But now they have the tools. 
 

You said: "Social networking is bringing civil rights to the Middle East." What did you mean by that?

Online social networks are one of the most important tools for facilitating freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.  All across places like the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America, we are seeing young people use online social networks to create, found, and build civil society organizations.  In some cases, governments welcome this; in others they don't.  But, social networks, blogs and mobile technology reduce the ability of repressive regimes to crack down. As there are no offices to raid, often the people organizing the movement use an alias, and undertake their activities from an Internet café where IP addresses can't be traced back to their homes. Its members can choose how anonymous or non-anonymous they want to be as they participate.  This is not foolproof--many young people have paid the consequences through arrest, intimidation and torture, but organizing and building a movement online is always safer than it is offline.     
 

Do you worry that there could be an end to all of this? Perhaps governments shutting down servers or restricting online freedom?

This is an unstoppable trend. Some repressive governments have arrested bloggers, online networkers, and young activists.  They have censored and blocked sites and deliberately made Internet slower in some cases.  While this has led to some serious crackdowns on individuals and their rights, tech savvy youth have proven their resilience and have responded by learning about proxies and getting around censorship.  Frankly speaking, they are far more savvy at responding to these crackdowns than we would be here in America.  If Facebook got shut down, I would have no clue what to do.  I would give up, because for me Facebook is a luxury that facilitates basic civil liberties that I already have.  But for kids in repressive societies, losing Facebook means losing an important tool for freedom of assembly and freedom of speech.  They will spend hours and hours Googling until they find a way to get around censorship.  This happened in Iran when they shut down Orkut.  Unless a country is like North Korea and totally restricts Internet, the Internet is an unstoppable force.  It is just a matter of time before young people learn how to effectively overcome whatever barriers their government puts in their way. 
 

What should older Americans know about the power of social networking?

Americans have seen the power of online social networking in our 2008 presidential campaign.  Both campaigns used online social networks to organize, put out their messages, raise funds, etc.  What a lot of Americans of my parents' generation say is: "I still don't understand why young people like putting all of this information about themselves online." But having seen the success of these movements in getting young people involved, I don't question the utility.  While this realization is a game-changer and Americans now see the value of social networks as a tool for empowerment, most people believe this is an American anomaly.  The reality is social networks as a tool for youth empowerment is a youth phenomenon that is taking place all across the world.  Americans need to see the connection between what we are witnessing in America and what is happening around the world. 
 

You have done a lot of studying regarding the youth in hot spots of the world. How much access do they have to technology? 

Before I was in government, I wrote a book called Children of Jihad in which I looked at this exact issue in the Middle East. One of the most common misperceptions is that access to technology is the privilege of the elite.  This couldn't be further from the truth.  I have seen nomads with satellite dishes in the desert with wires going to generators, satellite dishes that are larger than homes in some of the most impoverished parts of the world, and street children sharing SIM cards on a mobile phone so that they can split it among five of them.  Internet cafes are popping up all across the developing world and kids will often save up and walk several kilometers to use them.  It is true that Internet is not yet as widespread as mobile phones and satellite dishes, but it is growing the fastest. In places like Africa, kids are actually using the Internet for the first time over a mobile phone, before doing so over a computer.  Skepticism about information technology is always a dangerous thing because ultimately the private sector puts it on the public domain. If we don't engage and leverage these tools now, we will allow violent extremists to have a head start on us. 
 

What do you say to sceptics who say this is all well intentioned but how in any way does it fight terrorism?  

I would remind skeptics that the largest protest against a terrorist organization in the history of the world took place on February 4, 2008, when Oscar Morales, an unemployed engineer from Colombia, used Facebook and other new media to put 12 million people into the streets in 190 cities around the world after only one month of preparation.  I would also remind skeptics that there is no shortage of NGOs around the world who are doing their part to push back on violent extremism, but their major handicap is that their voice is not loud enough.  New media allows for those credible anti-violence voices to amplify their message. 

Why should young Americans use social networking for more than just uploading photos and poking people? 

60 percent of the developing world is under 30 and while those online are an influential minority, the exponential growth of the Internet will soon make them a powerful majority.  Violent extremists committed to shaping youth activities online have already established a presence in the digital space.  They transform chat rooms into recruitment centers, post videos preaching martyrdom, spam images of Muslims being killed around the world, and modify popular online games to reward players for killing Jews and Americans. 

This is all the more reason why young Americans need to reach out to the Middle East's plugged-in youth now. They can saturate cyberspace with alternative forums, activities, groups, and discourse essential to bridging the understanding gap.   For the first time in history, they will have the tools to have a conversation with young people around the world.  We need more dorm room diplomacy, where American youth use online platforms to be diplomats from their college dorm rooms and high school classrooms.   
 

Jared Cohen joined the Secretary of State's Policy Planning Staff in September 2006. He is responsible for counter-terrorism, counter-radicalization, youth and education, public diplomacy, Muslim world outreach, and the Maghreb.

The Alliance of Youth Movements Summit will take place December 3 to 5 at the Columbia Law School in New York City. Facebook, Google, YouTube, MTV, Howcast, Columbia Law School, the U.S. Department of State and Access 360 Media are organizing the summit.

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