Business & Money | Thursday 24 November, 2016 8:28 am |

The opening session of a conference on supervising social networks was held here Tuesday evening under the aegis of Madinah Gov. Prince Faisal bin Salman. The conference was organized by Naif bin Abdulaziz International Award for Prophetic Sunnah and Contemporary Islamic Studies.
Addressing the attendees, Saad Al-Orabi Al-Harthi, adviser to the crown prince and secretary-general of the award, talked about the intellectual, cognitive and behavioral risks posed to users of social networks who are mostly the younger generation.
He said that the conference should not be a one-off event, but should be supported by other conferences, studies and workshops that raise awareness among the youth and ensure the correct use of an invention that has the potential to build society.
He expressed hope that the scholars and thinkers taking part in the conference will contribute to spreading awareness among the community about the use of social media, reinforcing their positive aspects and minimize the negative effects.
Speaking on behalf of the foreign participants, Pakistani Minister of Religious Affairs, Haj and Endowments Sardar Mohammad Yusuf commended the tremendous attention paid by Saudi Arabia to all issues pertaining to the Muslim nation and its youth.
He said the conference is timely, as social media are taking up a large part of people’s lives globally, with many benefits but, at the same time, with the potential to spread great evil if used negatively.
The Pakistani official denounced the targeting of Makkah by the Houthi militia that launched missiles, proof, he said, that the “enemies of Islam are trying to destabilize the security of this blessed country.”
He reiterated Pakistani government and people’s support for Saudi Arabia.
The rector of the Islamic University in Madinah, Hatim Al-Marzouqi, highlighted the great effect social media have on individuals and communities.
He said that the conference is proof of the leading role the Kingdom plays in serving Islam and Muslims; it shows how to deal with social media according to Shariah teachings and how to use these media to promote the true faith, the Islamic call and spread moderation and tolerance, not extremism, emphasize the humanity of Islam, loyalty to the country and fight negative practices, rumors and deviant ideas.
The conference continued Wednesday with a series of papers tackling the issue of social media use.
Wala Rabi Mustafa, from Egypt, presented a paper on people with special needs using social media to widen social contact and improve the quality of family life.
Mohammed Ali, from Canada, and Ahmed Abu Al-Izz, from Egypt, presented a joint paper stressing the need to use social media to enhance positive thinking among the youth in a bid to avoid ideological extremism in the digital era.
Mohammed bin Zain-ul-Abdeen Rustom, from Morocco, shed light on the role played by the new technology in distorting the concept of jihad, hiding its proper and true meaning, and how deviant groups exploit social media to spread their false meaning of jihad.
Muhasin bin Musa Al-Husni and Ikram Abdullah Al-Kanouni, from Brazil, talked about the pros and cons of social media, stressing that social media have become an unavoidable necessity.