Written by Thilde Vesterby
If you have been reading Mindjumpers’ blog on a regular basis you know that we strongly believe that social media can be used to do social good in the world. The latest example on doing something good online comes from Facebook which has now launched a social media peace project.
According to an article in The Guardian, the peace project peace.facebook.com is trying to bring together opposing sides in some of the most bitterly divided areas of the planet, encouraging online friendships between Jews and Muslims, US liberals and conservatives, and Turks and Greeks. The project is a collaboration between Facebook and the Persuasive Technology Lab at Stanford University.
By tracking Facebook friendships and crunching the numbers, the site provides a daily snapshot of who is talking to whom and where.
When the Guardian had a look, peace.facebook revealed that over the previous 24 hours, there had been 7,339 India-Pakistan connections, 13,790 Greece-Turkey connections, and 5,158 Israel-Palestine connections. A click on the button for religious contact showed that over the same 24 hours, there had been 53,100 Christians and atheists in touch with each other, 1,250 Muslims and Jews talking, and 667 Sunni-Shia connections. In the US, meanwhile, the number of conservative-liberal connections was 27,896.
A statemant on the website says that: “By enabling people from diverse backgrounds to easily connect and share their ideas, we can decrease world conflict in the short and long term.”
The question is whether it’s enough to show that people from different political and religious backgrounds are connected on Facebook. I think it’s really positive that these people do talk to each other through Facebook, but they aren’t really the ones fighting the wars, are they? I do think that the project is a very positive initiative, as it shows that regular people don’t seem to care about their Facebook friend’s religious or political backgrounds. Facebook gives people from diverse backgrounds a chance to look at each other through Facebook and see that they aren’t really that different. What do you think? Does the Facebook peace project stand a chance at encouraging world peace?
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