There are more than 40,000 fictitious accounts on social media network sites in Saudi Arabia run by organized institutions, said an IT expert.
Addressing a social media training course in Dammam, Ammar Mohammed stressed the need to educate the public about the dangers presented by these fake accounts, which, he said, seek to incite public opinion and misguide users.
He said Saudi Arabia is the leading user of YouTube in the Arab world due to the vast geographical area of the Kingdom and the growing number of its population, in addition to the high connectivity speed that allows individuals to surf the Internet with ease.
The number of Tweets written in Arabic exceeded the 22 million monthly mark and the Arabic content has increased by 2,000 percent after the Arabization of the Twitter site, the expert said.
He said the figures highlight the importance and prominence of social networking sites in the Arab world as well as the need to exercise caution in using the sites.
“Our purpose is limited to educating people on how to use these sites since they contain a vast amount of unfiltered content,” he said.
Mohammed said Saudis have surpassed users around the world in taking advantage of social media platforms to launch humanitarian and educational campaigns.
Studies have proved that the Saudi society have used social media to address human needs and spread community awareness, he said.
Mohammed called on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and the Arab world to establish a content tracking center to assess the size of the content exchanged by the public on social media sites.
Hani Abdul Rahim Al-Minaiee, another expert, stressed the importance of marketing and the role new media is playing in this field.
Over 40,000 fake accounts on social media sites in KSA
