U.S. Funded Social Media Network in Afghanistan Considered a Success

A social media network, originally funded by the United States, has boomed in Afghanistan, despite the recent failings of a similar program in Cuba. The social media network called, Paywast, is uniting diverse cultures and ethnic groups across Afghanistan--people who wouldn't historically communicate. This program was started by the U.S. in order to "promote diplomacy.

I found this article to be really interesting. As we saw in the Rice article for this week, it feels that the U.S. has an obligation as a world leader to spread democracy. Rice explains this outreach in terms of reactions to terrorism, but I found this to be a better solution. The idea of giving people tools (in this case social media) to come together and make change in the own countries, on their own terms feels like a more stable (at least for the U.S.) and less intrusive method of the spread in democracy. In theory, it sounds better than pouring money and weapons into an unstable situation in order to promote a change.

The article also laid out another interesting idea. It seems that most of these social media programs haven't been made public, but the U.S. government insists that this operation and the one in Cuba we not covert.The company that runs the social media project now that the U.S. has backed away from funding does not openly acknowledge that the U.S. had funded it, but agencies insist that this fact was not overtly hidden from the Afghan government or its citizens. Could the U.S. or even the companies that run these social media networks feel that announcing this would hurt the cause? Would the network in Afghanistan be as successful if the citizens or government were made aware of the funding for Paywast?

Posted by Evy Lopez
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