Esra'a Al Shafei is the director of Mideast Youth website and the Free Kareem campaign.
Social networking is becoming increasingly popular amongst young people in the Middle East, and to some extent in North Africa, who wish to interact and inspire change in the region. For many years, our only form of mass communication was via traditional media outlets, most of which were heavily moderated or state owned. Young people had no shared platform where they could collectively exchange information about subjects ranging from literature, art and music to reporting human rights violations, the latter of which is becoming more common.
