Debate is no longer feasible about the idea of privacy that users have surrendered to in the giant Internet companies, but the most important discussion is now focused on the future impact of this Universal electronic penetration on the security of individuals and communities.
The expansion of the digital media sector raises, both in terms of spreading and in terms of the marketing value of the companies in this sector, a lot of questions about the future of personal security as well as the security of nations and communities at all levels, not just security, in a world where discussing privacy has become like a discussion of the past.
The text messaging service known as “WhatsApp” has been able to attract 300 million new users in one year only, and recently succeeded in attracting a total of one billion users, despite its short age, which is roughly about four years.
Social media impose a lot of problems and questions in our time, where the debate about information security represents one of the most important of these dilemmas. The huge electronic servers for these services are located in other countries, and the technical regulations allow, in general, access to personal data via “Metadata”, which makes tracking personal data automatically one of the easiest things. It is sufficient to note that companies acquire servers and other IT services, including their content of data and personal information of hundreds of millions of users via buying deals amounting to billions.
Almost no user cares about the privacy policies followed by these companies, and the updates and development that occur to them. It is enough to note that the conditions of use that we all agree on automatically include rules that totally take away your privacy, and give operators the right to obtain copies of your information, your messages and private photos that you keep on the phone.
Debate is no longer viable on the idea of privacy itself, enough is enough, as the saying goes, but the really important debate perhaps is the future impact of this Universal electronic breakthrough on the security of individuals and communities, and whether this information use is limited to the discovery of the various types of crimes proactively.
The demographics mosaic of Arab countries is essentially prepared to accept the idea of ignoring the cultural specificity
Some researchers believe that this enormous informational treasure contributes to the rapid pace of globalization and to bringing cultures together, while others argue that information flows in parallel tracks unrelated to each other, which means by extension the inaccuracy of the cultural convergence hypothesis. Proponents of this view say that the informational flow through this mechanism only serves big countries dominating the giant firms, and they believe that the analysis of the data and information produced by the privacy policies on social networking sites may, in the future, impose one values system and one cultural model on the largest segment of the world, or at least on the group using these means, which is about a quarter of the world’s population, which will facilitate the spreading of the cultural model by virtue of the high proliferation of users.
The globalization and modeling codes in the beginning were represented in Cinema and Television and so on, and many were afraid of the power of these tools, but the sweeping mechanisms of globalization that came afterwards make one say that what preceded them were mere experimental attempts, and push to build more precise perceptions on the future of these mechanisms under the current data.
What matters in this debate is the future of globalization and the consecration of evolved social media (WhatsApp and Facebook and others) on the cultural, social and economic aspects… etc. It is clear that these means play a highly influential role in the imposition of globalization and its values, at least in terms of usage and everyday habits and traditions for hundreds of millions of people around the world.
It is known that the theory of globalization is primarily founded on the idea of ”profiling” or consolidating global thinking, and the deployment of a specific culture and a typical framework of values, morals and behavioral model, including customs and traditions.
The idea has been excluded or difficult for many years before the accelerated pace of the spread of the idea of the “Americanization” or what is called “Googlization” or the dialectical terminology and vocabulary that emerged in research and academic discussions for more than two decades. It seems that this acceleration is a cause for public debate about the potential effects of this spread but from a different angle.
Engaging and interacting positively while supporting self-immunity factors of peoples is better than standing in the face of the overall tidal waves of globalization
The specialized scientific debates in the beginning were spinning in order to build intellectual walls against the huge waves of globalization, but the past few years have shown that these attempts are futile and a waste of time and effort, and the best course of action is positive engaging and interaction, but with the support of self-immunity factors of peoples and communities. The state of commonness and publicity and the erosion of individual and community privacy involves a high degree of cultural liquidity for small communities specifically, as is the situation in some countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), and what exacerbates this effect in relation to the Arab States is that there is a mosaic demographic composition prepared essentially to accept the idea of the absence of cultural privacy of the community.
There is no place to calls for isolationism or cultural and civilizational insularity, and we have to deal as individuals and countries with civilization tools and progress from a different perspective, and not rest on the negative consumer location. We have to take part with the makers of these waves, both in terms of scientific and cultural contribution or in terms of building critical positions to all that falls upon us from the world, east and west.
This is not a modicum in the presence of the phenomenon of militancy and extremism that benefit from technical development, but in the deployment of underdevelopment and in conjuring factors of civilizational and cultural decadence, and religious and sectarian strife. But also it does not make sense to limit ourselves to a seat on the sidelines and to giving in to the push and pull factors around us. As nations and peoples, we have to strive for renaissance in order to rise up from this state of slackness that serves the interests of the advocates of underdevelopment and stagnation.
