NETWORKING tools have become a real problem for government organs everywhere in the world. Whenever governments find a method to control these tools, another free and easy application appears. The authorities' fears about the possible use of these tools for dubious purposes increase. Recently our Communications and Information Technology Commission (CITC) — the very enemy of the free mobile roaming privilege we used to enjoy — has threatened to block the applications for free communication such as Skype, WhatsApp, Viber and others. The CITC gave local communication providers a week to talk to the international companies owning these applications with a view to subjecting them to security scrutiny. The grace period given will be over by the end of this week. If the multinational companies reply back that it is not possible to monitor user content on their applications, the CITC will block these applications completely in the Kingdom, once again taking the hard way against the consumer. A number of concerned government departments, represented by the CITC, fought a similar battle two years ago with the company manufacturing the BlackBerry. The battle culminated in an all-out victory for them. After initial reluctance, the company acquiesced and agreed to install special receivers that would enable the monitoring of conversations on this service. Such steps are understandable. Every government in the world would like to control the communication networks so as not to be abused by groups or organizations threatening its national security. However, the reality today is that such programs and applications are as easy to create as parking one's car in the desert. Similar applications are no longer the absolute monopoly of specialized international companies alone. They can easily be created in a very short time by people who have the talent and the zeal. Consumers, on the other hand, have legendary capabilities in dealing with these programs and applications. Children who are less than five years old can now play shared games through the iPad with children living in distant continents. Does this new threat from the CITC mean that we will enter into ferocious battles on every application or program which is newly designed? To sum up, we madly consume the fruits of modern technology but we do not manufacture them. We are therefore like a person who has built a house at the bottom of the valley. Whenever he constructs a dam to protect his house from the floods, the water will come to him from other sides. Thus our issues with modern communications tools and social networks will continue to exist and will be time-consuming and costly if we continue to treat them as rice imports, which is saying that they should either conform to our specifications or we will ban them. The reality is that whoever remains a consumer and not an inventor will be in a dilemma all the time because he is not able to come up with his own solutions and unable to prevent himself from using the inventions of the others. He will also not be able to convince the outside world to consider his private concerns. Others had succumbed to our demands once but will not be willing to do so again. Therefore we should celebrate the privileges of the WhatsApp application before the duel between the company and the CITC comes to an end. If we lose the match we should take the result sportingly. We did not invent WhatsApp, so I guess we should leave it alone.
