Faisal Al-Shboul said in an interview with “Sky News Arabia” that the members of the Executive Bureau of Arab Information Ministers, emanating from the Conference of Arab Information Ministers, unanimously approved the plan last March in Kuwait.
Jordanian pledge
He explains that Jordan, at the previous session of the Council of Arab Information Ministers, which was held in Cairo last September, pledged to present an integrated plan and an Arab guiding draft law to deal with international media, protect users, and regulate digital broadcasting platforms and digital taxes.
And he shows that the strategic plan included cooperation and coordination to do justice to the content related to Arab issues that these platforms program their algorithms to show or hide.
He explains that the pilot project for the Arab strategy for dealing with international media companies takes into account the specificities of Arab countries and defends Arab issues, foremost of which is the Palestinian issue, Islamophobia and other important issues, such as hate speech, incitement to violence, moral issues and societal values.
Justice for Arab issues
The Jordanian minister indicates that the plan is divided into several axes, the first of which is fairness to Arab and Islamic issues with “legitimate right” and equality with other issues, which these platforms program their algorithms to highlight or hide the content related to them, within international law and international norms.
Protect children
As for the second axis, its essence lies in the protection of children, who are the most vulnerable group in societies, given the many negative propaganda they are exposed to in these platforms without the presence of age groups eligible to use social media, and limiting exposure of children to immoral content or content that is not appropriate for their groups. age.
This includes scenes that contain violent scenes or hate speech, attacks on privacy, and others. It also includes legislation that holds parents responsible in the event of falsifying the age group of a child in the event that they commit a crime on these platforms, according to Al-Shboul.
Save the media right
He says that the last axis is related to preserving the right of the local Arab media for each country to advertise, in a manner that applies with their duty to provide spaces for constructive discussion.
And he adds: “These platforms acquired large shares of advertising at the expense of the media, and that any advertisement inside any country targets a local audience for these countries, which gives lawmakers the right to recover part of these revenues and distribute them to the media with a specific mechanism that guarantees the rights of everyone, either by By distributing annual aid to the local media, or by making agreements with these companies and allowing the media according to the content they provide on these means, and to gain revenues within a clear agreement.”
The Jordanian minister cited an official local study, which revealed that 116 million US dollars came out of the share of the media in favor of these platforms, despite the fact that the Jordanian media market is a narrow market for media, compared to the rest of the Arab and international countries.
Al-Shboul explained that most countries of the world tend to conclude agreements with digital platforms to preserve the right of the media, stressing that Jordan benefited from previous experiences in its plan, the most prominent of which was the European Agreement (Unified European Digital Services Law), and the German model, which is the best model in this field. It also ensures the regulation of the work of digital broadcasting platforms, and dealing with digital taxes.
Next step
The Jordanian minister reveals, “This plan will see the light, and official communications will be initiated with all these platforms and search engines (Google, Facebook, Snapchat…) by an Arab team that will be formed in the event of the approval of the Council of Arab Information Ministers, which will be held in Rabat in June. Next”.
He favored the ease of reaching agreements with these companies and platforms, given the readiness of the team and the plan, while emphasizing that the vision and goal are clear, which paves the way for the necessary procedures to be taken.
New starting point
For his part, Jordanian journalist Ahmed Al-Zaboun explains that Jordan has worked, during the past decade, to study many options to regulate the work of social communication, and reduce the serious violations committed in its areas, but it finally settled on its plan.
The customer confirms, in his interview with “Sky News Arabia”, that the plan revives paper newspapers in the Arab world, most of which are dying and have begun to leave their paper copies, especially with the existence of provisions that oblige international media companies to pay part of the advertisements, which constitutes a new start in the midst of obstacles. The huge economy that the media is facing in the wake of the Corona pandemic.
It is noteworthy that the plan did not only deal with economic matters with international companies; Rather, it addressed the issue of false news and hate speech, which has increased in frequency in the country, during the recent times, but the plan sets financial penalties against these companies in the event that the false news is not removed.
He recalls the issue of blocking the “Tik Tok” platform, which has been suspended in the Kingdom for more than four months, due to the spread of hate speech and the failure to delete content that violates Jordanian law.
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