ALKHOBAR, 1 June 2004 — I was supposed to be writing today about the Sixth Arab Telecom and Internet Forum (ATIF 2004), which took place in Doha, Qatar from May 30 to June 1. ATIF 2004 is a joint platform for two of the most influential events on telecom in the Arab region: The Sixth International Telecommunications Union (ITU) Annual Meeting for Telecommunications in the Arab Region and the Sixth Arab Telecom and Internet Economy Conference. With the telecom service providers in the region numbering 53 now, this should have been a very interesting event to attend. Unfortunately, I never got there.

On Saturday morning I woke up and called my driver, preparing to go out and pick up the airline tickets for Doha. Before my driver reached me I began receiving phone calls. There had been a shooting. Did I know anything about it? Instead of going to the airline office, I diverted to the Petroleum Center office complex on Prince Sultan Road. The police and ambulances gathered there were an immediate indication that something terrible had happened.

Quickly, more calls started coming in. Trouble was being reported all over town. I struggled to track the trail of carnage being described. My colleague and I were overwhelmed. We split the sites of reported catastrophe between us and went to check each one. Soon, the terrorists holed up in a housing compound and with my office just six minutes from that location, I went back to my desk to try and unravel the information collected up to that point. It soon became clear that much of what I had been told was misinformation.

People didn’t mean to be misleading and many thought they were doing a public service, but information and communication technology (ICT) when abused is a terrible thing. Rumors and gossip rapidly spread far and wide thanks to e-mail and SMS. After a few hours, once the first incorrect renditions had been passed around and translated into a few dozen languages, thanks to the presence of a very international community in Alkhobar, the situation got much worse. The information was so corrupted that the stories appeared to be entirely new attacks. Then the world’s media got hold of the story and pandemonium broke out.

I could no longer make outgoing calls on my mobile telephone because of all the incoming calls. When the phone became completely overloaded the handset froze and had to be reset several times at inconvenient moments. Everyone on the Arab News team was actually talking on at least two different lines continuously throughout Saturday’s horrible hours. Part of the problem was caused by the fact that there were no official spokespeople fielding calls for any of the organizations, agencies and companies affected by the major attacks. When there is an information vacuum people try to fill it. International broadcasters are particularly desperate to do so because their revenue depends on having the best story first. They need information now and fast.

ICT means that in seconds we can reach out and contact a complete stranger on the other side of the planet. In Saudi Arabia there is also a dearth of what might be called, “available English-speaking trusted sources.” Combine those two factors and English speaking journalists at Arab News are in the eye of every news nightmare in Saudi Arabia.

Arab News Editor in Chief Khaled Al-Maeena bravely faced the incoming media tornado. He fielded calls and gave interviews to media outlets on almost every continent. There was no let up for two days. Unfortunately, most international calls to our mobile telephones just showed the message “anonymous.” There was no clue who was calling. Some media organizations called again and again persistently trying to use Arab News resources to update their stories. At three o’clock in the morning Sunday I was not willing to talk to any reporters but I did want to provide information to relatives and friends calling from abroad concerned about their loved ones. Because my phone could not show me the number on international calls it was impossible to decide which calls to take and which to ignore. Turning on the voice mail, I began screening calls so I could answer the desperate ones. Some ignorant international media simply ignored the voicemail and persistently called in those pre-dawn hours.

After the attacks were over on Sunday, we hoped that Monday might be a better day. And it was better in the sense that there was no more carnage. But then the rumor mill began grinding out tales of terror. Once again, enabled by technology, those stories spread far and wide. Media and officials of many governments spent most of the day on Monday trying to check out all the incoming reports. It was a nasty avalanche of misinformation and by the day’s end we were exhausted and furious.

In the evening yesterday I could hear my voice sounding snappish with a member of the public who had called insisting that shots had been fired at a fast-food restaurant in Alkhobar. I assured her that we had already checked out that rumor and there was absolutely no truth to it. When she insisted that I was wrong I had to take a deep breath and ask her if she had personal knowledge about the gunfire. “No. Of course not!” she replied angrily. I asked her how she had come to know about the shots fired. “From one of my best friends! She’s completely dependable,” she assured me.

And so I told her to phone her friend and ask her where she had found out about the gunfire. She should ask her friend if she had personally seen the gunmen or if she had personally heard the shots or if she had personally seen the victims of this crime. If so, the lady should call me back immediately and I would summon all resources at my disposal to verify her story. If her friend was just passing a secondhand story to her, then her friend should phone whoever had called in the first place and ask her the same questions. If they ever found someone who actually had eyewitness knowledge of the gunshots at that location, they should telephone me immediately and I would drop everything and follow up the report on their behalf.

The woman never called back.

ICT is wonderful. I use it everyday in my work. Digital photos are sent to my office all the way across the country in seconds. When my network is down for even half an hour I’m freaking out and activating backup computer arrangements. I have considered having my mobile telephone surgically attached to my body so it could never be lost. I don’t know how I used to manage without e-mail and the information resources of the Internet. I love technology and can’t wait to discover ways that it can help me have a better quality of life. That’s why I’d like everyone out there to try and remember their manners when it comes to using ICT.

• Don’t phone me at 3 in the morning just because you can. Use your ICT resources to figure out the time at my location.

• Don’t assume that I know you just because you have obtained my mobile number or e-mail. Introductions are still polite.

• Don’t phone me angrily demanding to know why I haven’t comprehensively answered your mail query about Saudi Arabia. There are other people on this planet. Maybe I received their mail first.

• If I provided you with my mobile number or personal e-mail ask me if I mind before you give it to someone else.

• Don’t order me to use my ICT resources to enable you. Ask nicely. If I can I will. If I can’t I’m sorry.

• Don’t pass around rumors and gossip using your ICT resources. We all hate spam.

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