User:Harusaif/Sandbox

USAbilAraby is the Twitter account of the US Department of State's Arabic Media Hub. The name, "USAbilAraby," means "USA in Arabic." As this suggests, the Twitter account tweets messages from the US government, primarily in Arabic typed in Arabic script. Its first tweet appeared on February 9, 2011.

History
USAbilAraby began tweeting on February 9, 2011. Its first tweet read:

In English: "The US State Department recognizes the historic role that social media is playing in the Arab world and we want to be part of your conversations #Jan25 #Egypt"
 * 1) Egypt #Jan25 تعترف وزارة الخارجية الأمريكية بالدور التاريخي الذي يلعبه الإعلام الإجتماعي في العالم العربي ونرغب أن نكون جزءاً من محادثاتكم

Within hours of that first tweet, the account had roughly 300 followers ; as of April 17, 2011, the account has 6,208 followers and is included on 194 lists.

2010-2011 Protests in the Middle East and North Africa
The account began tweeting during the wave of protests and demonstrations that began to sweep through the Arab world in December of 2010. These were triggered in part by the self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazizi on December 17 in Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. When USAbilAraby began tweeting, the Tunisian Revolution had led to the ousting of then-president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. The hashtags "#Egypt" and "#Jan25" in USAbilAraby's first tweet are references to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, which began on January 25, 2011 and was, at that time, underway. Major protests in Yemen and Algeria, were also currently occurring. Protests in Bahrain, Iraq, and Kuwait began soon afterward. On the same day, February 9, the Syrian government lifted its four-year ban on YouTube and Facebook.

US State Department
USAbilAraby can be considered part of US Secretary of State Hilary Rodham Clinton's 21st Century Statecraft project. 21st century statecraft is defined as "complementing traditional foreign policy tools with newly innovated and adapted instruments of statecraft that fully leverage the networks, technologies, and demographics of our interconnected world." In the same vein, four days after USAbilAraby began tweeting, USAdarFarsi ("USA in Farsi") was launched.

The USAbilAraby Twitter profile describes the account as being connected to the US Department of State Arabic Media Hub. [twitter account] However, because the US State Department's website doesn't specifically provide any information about such an organization by name, it is unclear what responsibilities it may have. Its set of responsibilities may, for example, resemble those of the US State Department's East Asia and Pacific Media Hub, the mission of which "is to help media organizations in the East Asia and Pacific region find U.S. Government officials to interview, on whatever topic or issue is of interest." The East Asia and Pacific Media Hub offers to arrange film, radio, and telephone interviews with US officials for the media, and currently has presences on both Twitter and Facebook and can be reached by email. The use of the word "hub" in "US Department of State Arabic Media Hub" suggests that the USAbilAraby Twitter account may be only the first of a number of Arabic-language presences in social media from the US State Department.

Language
It has been noted that USAbilAraby's tweets employ Modern Standard Arabic, a formal register commonly used in media and official discourse. This contrasts with other forms of Arabic used in social media contexts, particularly by noninstitutional actors; these forms often employ dialect and may be typed in the roman alphabet (such as Arabizi).