Content and Usage of Arabic Online Forums and Groups

Helmi Noman

This paper is part of a project that studies the demographics and usage patterns of Internet users in the Arab countries. The study identifies the demographic profiles of the Internet Arabic populations, and scientifically measures and defines their usage patterns, online activities, and interests.

The research answers a number of large questions that have not been answered previously. It offers a better understanding of how issues such as poverty, high illiteracy rate, poor telecommunication systems, and lack of institutional support affect the characteristics of Internet users and their online behavior. It also offers better understanding of how censorship, filtering and legal issues affect the flow of information. (See An Overview of The Demographics and Usage Patterns of Internet Users in Developing Countries: Yemeni Internet Population as a Case Study)

This paper is an abridged version of a comprehensive and lengthy study that examines and reviews Arabic Web content, its quality, quantity and the technology used to host and produce it.

Online Arabic Forums and Groups

Summary

Online Arabic forums and groups have dynamic voluntarily content contribution. Islam and sex are predominant themes in the Arabic online communities.

Arab Internet users adjust their online behavior according to their areas of content interests. Censorship imposed by ISPs restricts access to content but users exploit alternative technologies to circumvent filtering systems.

Forums: General Characteristics

Online forums have rapidly spread as stand-alone web sites or as part of larger sites. This study examined 338 active forums for content quality, quantity, and the technology used to host and produce it. The study was conducted between July and September 2005.

The rapid spread of Arabic forums can be attributed to the following common characteristics:

1. Easy and inexpensive technology: Almost all of the Arab online forums are powered by vBulletin, which can be lease licensed for as low as US$80.00 per year and owned licensed for US$160.00 per year. The software provides Web sites administrators with scalability and customizability, which make it easy for even amateur programmers to build online communities.

Forums believed to be run by individuals as well as those funded by governments such as the U.S. State Department funded Hi Magazine are powered by vBulletin.

2. Empowerment: Most of the Arab forums are not moderated, that is users can read and post immediately. Users can usually comment on previous posts as well as create new topics and invite other users to contribute and/or comment. This feature empowers site owners and maintainers as well as individual Internet users, who visit these Web sites, to talk and express themselves freely, anonymously, and without censorship. This is particularly true given the kind of content that is being discussed and/or contributed which is mostly controversial substance that does not appear in mainstream media.

3. Collaborative: Forums encourage collaborative approaches to build their content. A forum owner chooses the big theme of the forum and the subject of each forum room. Users are invited to volunteer content, which is often coordinated by forum administrators. Some forums give users who significantly contribute to the forum more administrative rights so that they can take the lead in organizing content.

4. A place to "hang out": Unlike static Web sites, forums are dynamic and interactive. These two features make forums attractive environment where users “hang out” and spend more time than what they would spend on a non-interactive site. Many Arabic sites added forums to their sites to generate traffic, to enrich their content, and to make users want to come back to their sites.

Because forums have proved to be self-sustainable, there are now tens of stand-alone forums.

5. False identities are welcome: Even though the majority of the forums require a user to register and to provide an email before he/she can read and write, it is perfectly acceptable to choose fake identities. Anonymous publishing is the norm in the Arabic forums.

Forums: A Closer Look

Each online forum has a general theme around which it builds its content such as Islam, politics, and entertainment. A forum is divided into “rooms” or subjects, which are derived from the main theme. Some forums however do not stick to a particular theme.

This survey categorized the selected forums based on each forum’s predominant theme and content. Each forum is found to belong to one of 11 large themes or categories.

Islamic forums (27%): Forums based on Islamic themes constitute the vast majority of the Arabic online communities and they account for 27% of the active Arabic forums. Content in these forums include discussions about Islamic issues, debates on politics and current affairs from Islamic prospective, information about the different Islamic schools of thoughts, Fatwas (Islamic legal rules) on a variety of social matters, and Islamic songs and poetry.

Islamic forums can be divided to two types:

- Jihadi forums: These are few in numbers, but extremely active. They are believed to be run by Jihadi organizations and their supporters. Content in these forums is mostly claims of responsibilities and Fatwas on Jihad.

Media organizations and several Western research sites actively monitor these sites and report their newsworthy materials.

Authorities usually shut down these forums but they continue to pop up in new web servers.

- Mainstream forums: These forums discuss politics and current affairs, social and family matters, and seasonal issues such as Ramadan during Ramadan and Hajj during the Hajj season.

Jihad supporters are active contributors to these forums and they volunteer sophisticated materials such as multimedia presentations.

Politics and current affairs forums (5%): Content in these forums includes news from media organizations posted by users, debates on national and regional Arab politics, and comments and opinions on current events. While these forums are few in numbers, their content is comparatively rich and more dynamic.

Stock market forums (11%): This theme is the newest to the online forum community. These forums contain information about stock markets especially those in the Gulf countries.

Education forums (1%): These are forums developed by mostly education institutions and they contain tutorials and academic discussions.

Science forums (1%): This category contains forums which discuss science related issues, e.g., chemistry and honey bees.

Computer forums (17%): Forums in this category constitute a large virtual information technology academy where professional computers experts get sophisticated assistance from their peers and where amateur programmers learn how to develop their skills.

Content in this category can be divided into the following:

1. Professional development: This includes programming tutorials, PC maintenance how-to, Web development skills, and computer Arabization tools.
2. Hacking and software sharing: Users exchange pirated software and learn how to bypass filtering proxies.
3. Games: News about computer games and related downloads.

Medical forums (2%): These forums contain public health information, medical advises, and psychological counseling.

Sports forums (6%): These are forums developed by mostly football (soccer) fans about their favorite teams and players. Discussion is not limited to football in the Arab world, but it also covers World and European championships.

Entertainment forums (13%): These are forums which have a variety of entertainment subjects including music, movies, pop stars, poetry, and stories. Exchanging mobile phone melodies is a top activity in these forums.

Sexually explicit materials appear in some forums in this category and site administrators often remove them.

Family and women forums (6%): They include health information for family members and especially women, religious Fatwas on women issues, women political and social participation in Arab societies, make-ups, clothes, and raising kids.

Contributions in these forums are generally conservative in their approaches to controversial issues.

Miscellaneous forums (11%): This category includes forums which are generic and contain miscellaneous subjects. Topics in this area include tourism, cars, and cooking.

Yahoo! Groups

Yahoo! Groups provide a mechanism for people to communicate with other people who share common interests. Users can either start a group on a particular topic or they can just subscribe to an existing group.

To examine Arabic content available on Yahoo! Groups, 109 active groups were reviewed for content and type of activity and were categorized accordingly. The surveyed groups had to have at least 200 subscribers and had to have been active between July and September 2005.

Sex-related groups predominate Yahoo! Groups and they account for 42% of the total groups surveyed. These groups facilitate the exchange of Arabic sex and sexually oriented materials such as movie clips, photos, and particularly clips taken with mobile phone cameras.

Other themes include Islam (12%), Music (11%), politics (9%), Computers (6%), Sports (6%), and Miscellaneous (14%).

Yahoo! Groups: General Observations

1. Groups in the categories Islam, Music, Politics, Computers, Sports have between 200 to 5,000 subscribers. Some groups in the Sex groups have an average of 30,000 subscribers. At least one Sex group has more than 150,000 subscribers

2. The reason why there is so much sex on Yahoo! Groups in comparison to the forums is because how the filtering system works. Access to forums can be blocked by local ISPs. Yahoo! Groups however are more difficult to block. In addition, if a Group gets blocked, users can continue to exchange files with the other group users using Yahoo! email once they successfully subscribe to a group.

3. Yahoo! requests users who create new sex groups to place them under “Yahoo! Adult category”. Arabic sex groups do not stick to this rule and they are placed in several categories.

4. Sex groups are often flooded with emails which have Islamic Fatwas forbidding the use of explicit sex materials. The groups also receive computer viruses which attempt to destroy their content.

At least two groups are known to have started as sex groups before they shifted to Islamic content.

5. Islamic groups are often infiltrated by Arab Christians who circulate Arabic biblical materials and invite Muslims to embrace Christianity.