Digital World War by Haroon Ullah

Digital World War by Haroon Ullah

Author:Haroon Ullah
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780300231106
Publisher: Yale University Press


Plotting the Google Course

To what extent was this a global trend? And did Islamists and/or extremists drive it? Google searches for the phrase “Innocence of Muslims” in 2012 show that, unsurprisingly, the peak was reached in the week of September 9–15, with a statistically insignificant number of searches in the previous week, and a more gradual tail-off in the subsequent weeks (down 7 per cent the next week, to less than a quarter of the peak volume by September 23–29, and to 5 per cent by September 30–October 6). The pattern is familiar to all those who analyze how knowledge spreads in the internet age, and how quickly one phenomenon can be replaced by other trends or scandals. In Pakistan, while searches ballooned during the week of September 9–15 (to more than a quarter of the peak number), it was only in September 16–22 that searches climaxed—tripling at a time when searches in the rest of the world were declining. Indonesia and Bangladesh followed a similar pattern. Residents of those countries were clearly not responding to what was happening in Egypt with a knee-jerk reaction, and were taking their cues from events other than the Cairo embassy protest.

The phrase “Innocence of Muslims” never came close to “Gangnam Style,” the second most popular search in the world in 2012, peaking at just 27 per cent of the song’s total searches worldwide.39 But, disaggregated by country, “Innocence of Muslims” was a far bigger deal in the Muslim world than that might suggest. In the top ten countries by search volume—with Bangladesh first, followed by Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Lebanon, Malaysia, United Arab Emirates, Singapore, Nigeria, and the Philippines—six are majority Muslim, and one is roughly half Muslim.

It is interesting that, with the exception of Pakistan and, to a certain extent, Bangladesh, the countries that experienced the most unrest over the video were not the ones where the search was most popular. There are several possible explanations. It could be that people who actually searched for the video were more likely to be interested in it and less likely to get upset—ready more to laugh or to simply be informed than to be angry. Alternatively, it could be that people living in countries where the video caused uproar did not search for it because it was so prevalent—a link to it was emailed or messaged to them, or they viewed it as a group with friends, teachers, or religious leaders. A third reason may lie in the problem of comparing countries with huge variances in internet connectivity and population sizes. Or, the crucial factor explaining the difference between, say, Pakistan and Indonesia could be the presence of interest groups in the former, which saw a possible advantage in fanning the flames of the controversy in order to use popular anger to further their own political ends. This does not mean that every religious or political leader who called for a protest against the video was motivated to do so purely by cold-hearted calculation; but, when their interests and their passions aligned, the result was explosive.



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