Daily Times

If anyone would like to see the creative use of digital media for diplomacy, the recent Riyadh Summit is a no brainer. They did everything they could to make themselves noticeable; except they didn’t earn the prominence, they bought it.

The Twittersphere witnessed one “Promoted Trend” #RiyadhSummit on top of all trending topics on Friday evening. This was followed by another promoted trend in Urdu #????_??????? with the description as vague as “for unity of Muslim Ummah and to defend Islam’s holiest sites”. This was continued on the second day and then replaced with the trend “MiskTweeps” which is still on top as a promoted trend on 3^rd day. With all these promoted trends, it said promoted by one “MiSK Foundation” which was founded as “philanthropic foundation” by Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz.

How much does it cost to get a promoted trend placed on top of the list?

There’s no simple answer. It depends on the kind of customised deal one strikes with the social media giant Twitter. However, according to some estimates by digital agencies and monitors, it goes for at least USD 200,000 per trend per day.

It is unclear how many geographic locations the promoted trend covers in but in any case, so far, $600,000 may have been spent. This is just for the promoted trends. Other digital activities might have cost way more. Digital diplomacy is not cheap, to say the least.

Other forms of digital [public] diplomacy activities included customised hashtag emojis, live streaming of the summit and breakout sessions using Periscope and a panel discussion on countering extremism – the panel comprised social media personalities and much more.

The Riyadh Summit, dubbed as Arab-Islamic-American summit by the media, started this Saturday in Riyadh. High profile attendees include United States president Donald Trump, leaders and representatives of 55 Arab and Muslim-majority countries including Pakistan’s Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

The summit is dominated by the agenda of counter terrorism but breakout sessions also cover business and trade ties. The headline of this story is US sale of arms – 110 billion dollars to begin with – and bolstering the Islamic Military Alliance that excludes Muslim countries such as Iran and Syria.

Digital diplomacy may well be a misnomer. What lies ahead is perhaps more bloodshed of Muslims by Muslims – with hi-tech ‘infidel’ weapons.

Propaganda, well established in traditional media, has reached the digital media.

This is why none of the participants dared to question the Saudi bombing of Yemen leading to a high number of civilian casualties.

A twitter trend therefore hides more than what it says.

The writer is the Digital Editor, Daily Times. He can be reached at me@farhanjanjua.com and tweets @farhanjanjua