And Facebook is growing rapidly in that part of the world with a population of about 400-500 million people: 29 percent growth in 2012, according to a new infographic from Socialbakers.

The “Arab Spring” popular uprisings in 2011 and 2012 contributed to that growth, according to Socialbakers — particularly in the most politically active countries, Qatar, Libya, and Iraq. Those three countries’s Facebook user numbers have soared in 2012, 115 percent, 86 percent, and 81 percent respectively. Facebook, along with YouTube and Twitter, helped protesters organize and collaborate during the popular uprisings in those countries.

Egypt, the most populous country in the region, grew the most by absolute measures, adding 2.5 million Facebook users.

It’s not profitable growth, at least not comparatively, and not yet: Facebook users in MENA countries are some of the least valuable users as far as advertisers are concerned. But that will likely change over time.

One oddity that I noticed in the infographic: Israel is missing from the map. In a variety of sources that I checked, Israel is included in the MENA countries in some cases but not all. It does seem strange, however, that Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Lebanon are shown on the map, but Israel is not.

Here’s all the data, in visual form.

photo credit: jonrawlinson via photopin cc

Social media has gained footing in political and wartime communications. When the revolution in Egypt first broke out, that country’s now ousted leader, Hosni Mubarak, tried to shut down the Internet to prevent citizens from organizing against him on social media. When American enemy number one Osama Bin Laden was killed, a bystander tweeted the sounds of helicopters without knowing how important his tweets would be. Syria, Bahrain and Lybia also attempted to shut down the Internet when protesters filled their streets. Now Stavridis has used the medium to communicate the end of a war, before any official statements went out.

Stavridis posted to his Facebook fan page wall, “An extraordinary 24 hours in Libya. As SACEUR, I will be recommending conclusion of this mission to the North Atlantic Council of NATO in a few hours. A good day for NATO. A great day for the people of Libya.”

He then tweeted the same message with a link back to the Facebook post.

Stavridis and Lybia are not the only ones using social media to communicate about the war. Google recently held a workshop in conjunction with Tunisian news startup Tunisia Live to educate politicians on how to use Google products and social networks to spread their own messages. Google was inspired to help Tunisia because of its road to democracy and its first “free election” slated to take place this Sunday, October 23. Leaders from over 40 new political coalitions attended.

For many, the lift on YouTube and the opening of Tunisia Live’s own channel Tunisia Talks was a defining moment.

No official word on the end of the Libyan war has been released, but for Stavridis and his social following, the message is already out.

[via Wired]

The images and videos of bloody fighting in Libya can be hard to watch, but they are easy to come by.

“Everyone has stuff like this,” a rebel fighter said to a Reuters reporter in Misrata, as he showed cell phone video of government tanks entering the city and video of what he says was an unarmed doctor shot by Gaddafi troops, bleeding to death in the street.

Cell phones have become a valuable weapon in Libya’s uprising. Mummar Gaddafi’s attempts to shut down rebel forces’ ability to communicate were repeatedly thwarted by cell phones. Not only that, but the phones were capturing evidence of  war crimes. Government soldiers and rebels alike took videos and pictures of fighting.

These will be digital recordings of evidence used in future trials. Any “footage and images to confirm the alleged crimes” was requested by the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo back in February when the United Nations Security Council referred the Libyan uprising to the court. While the court filing listed evidence primarily from the media, it also used “unspecified sources.”

Gaddafi’s government has denied charges of crimes against humanity filed by the International Criminal Court. These charges have been filed against Gaddafi, his son Saif al-Islam and intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi.

Reuters reporter Nick Carey writes from Misrata where rebel-allied lawyers say they have compiled 150 gigabytes of video evidence of Gaddafi forces’ war crimes. They started gathering the video in April 2011, and the videos come from cellphones of civilians, rebel fighters and government fighters captured or killed during fighting. The lawyers say the footage was sometimes hard to collect because of sniper fire. Sometimes they were putting their lives at risk for footage that cannot be used in court.

“To be used as evidence it has to be from a trusted source and it has to be clear what is happening,” explained Omar Abulifa in an interview with Reuters. Abulifa is a former prosecutor and head of the Misrata-based Human Rights Activists Association. What constitutes a “trusted source” isn’t clearly defined, if it can be defined at all.

“If there is a conversation from the defense about certain evidence, it is up to the judges to decide the admissibility of that evidence,” an International Criminal Court official said to Reuters.

Freelance Kelowna journalist Kelly Hayes just returned from a week of reporting in Libya near Benghazi. Hayes, who also covered the Haiti earthquake and war in Afghanistan, shoots with a professional camera or his iPhone, depending on the circumstance. Below we’ve posted a sample of his reporting.

“When you shoot with an iPhone, you blend in with everyone else,” Hayes explained. He said that in certain situations his large camera can become the equivalent of a giant, red target. Crowds of protestors fear videos will be used against them by the government, and they will attack photographers. They can be especially wary of photographers with nice-looking equipment.

Hayes said cell phones equipped with video cameras are so common in Libya, he never stands out in the crowd. The popularity of cell phone videos began with the revolution in Tunesia, and the concept of technology as a weapon “spread like cancer across North Africa.” (For a really great story on Tunesia, revolution and technology, read this article from MIT’s Technology Review.)

“Technology played a massive role in this war,” said Hayes. “The people I witnessed were doing something really productive with it. They weren’t out shooting video of their family beach vacations. That’s nice and all, but these videos are for everyone and they can really tell a story.”

(Image courtesy Reuters)

Syria on Friday became the latest country to follow the trend: More than two-thirds of all Syrian networks are unreachable, according to a Renesys blog post.

Al Jazeera confirmed on its Syria liveblog that Internet traffic from the country has flatlined, according to a Google Transparency Report.

Internet cut-offs have occurred during revolutions in Egypt, Bahrain, and Libya. Those countries, along with Syria, have government-controlled internet service providers. Syrian Telecom (officially named “Syrian Telecommunications Establishment”) provides DSL and dial-up services to businesses and individuals. Other providers in the country provide 3G and 3.5G connectivity, but only operate when the government allows it.

The Web shut down comes on a day of intense violence in Syria. Reuters reports that Syrian security forces killed at least 34 protestors in the city of Hama on Friday. The report says forces fired into a group of tens of thousands gathered in the city center of Hama, and “scores” of wounded were taken to a nearby hospital.

Protesters have been marching the streets of Syria every Friday since mid-March to demonstrate against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule. When leaving mosques after noon prayer, protesters have been met by armed security forces and snipers.

Time will tell if the protests will make a significant impact on al-Assad’s regime.

The video below shows a mass protest held in Damascus earlier today: