ANKARA: Instagram users in Turkiye woke up Sunday to find the social media network blocked for the third consecutive day, following censorship accusations against the US company from a high-ranking Turkish official.
The BTK communications authority announced on its website on Friday that the Meta-owned platform had been frozen, without giving any reason.
An official then referred to a regulation that allows “criminal content” to be blocked.
“Our country has values and sensitivities. Despite our warnings, they did not take care of criminal content,” Transport and Infrastructure Minister Abdulkadir Uraloglu said on Friday.
“We blocked access. When they abide by our laws, we’ll lift the ban.”
The president’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, accused Instagram on Wednesday of “preventing people from publishing messages of condolence for the martyr (Hamas leader Ismail) Haniyeh.”
“This is a very clear and obvious attempt at censure,” Altun said on social media platform X.
The social-democrat and nationalist opposition parties and the Ankara legal profession petitioned the courts on Friday evening for the freeze to be lifted.
According to Turkish media, 50 million of the country’s 85 million people have an Instagram account.
Instagram blocked in Turkiye for third day
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Instagram blocked in Turkiye for third day
Middle East’s mass events are new scale of nation-building, marketing chief tells WEF
- Sir Martin Sorrell said region is leveraging major events to reposition itself on global stage
LONDON: The Middle East has used large-scale events such as the World Expo and FIFA World Cup as transformative exercises in nation-building, Sir Martin Sorrell, executive chairman of digital advertising and marketing company S4Capital, told the World Economic Forum in Davos.
During a panel session called “Mass Events, Massive Gains?” Sorrell highlighted how countries such as Saudi Arabia and the UAE were leveraging major events to reposition themselves on the global stage.
“What’s really interesting about what's happening in the Middle East is we’re seeing nation branding on a scale that we’ve never seen before,” he said. “Because what’s happening in the Middle East is (that) the rulers of these countries are really thinking about not just (in terms of) sports positioning, (but) it goes much more (deeply), it’s about political, cultural, social positioning of the country.”
The region, particularly Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar, has heavily invested in hosting high-profile events to boost international appeal while providing citizens with a growing array of entertainment and cultural experiences.
Dubai hosted the World Expo in 2021, the first such event in the Middle East, while Qatar welcomed a cumulative 3.4 million attendees during the 2022 FIFA World Cup, according to official figures.
Saudi Arabia has also expanded its portfolio of global events, hosting major sports competitions such as Formula One in Jeddah, the 2024 WTA Tennis Finals in Riyadh, and the Dakar Rally since 2020. Looking ahead, the Kingdom is set to host marquee events including the 2027 AFC Asian Cup, the 2030 Riyadh Expo, and the 2034 FIFA World Cup.
While these drive significant social and economic benefits, they also come with high costs. Sorrell emphasized the need for a more balanced approach to event planning in the future.
“There’s also an economic tension, because whilst it’s true that these events are very powerful, they’re also very costly,” he explained.
“So what’s happening is the events are going to have to be changed, in my view, in the longer term. One, they’re going to probably have less new facilities, and therefore (be) more economic. And they’re also going to have to be much more sustainable, and they’re also going to have to appeal to consumers, particularly Gen Z, who are different.”
On the same panel, H.H. Sheikha Latifa Bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, chairperson of the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority, emphasized the broader social impact of such events, particularly in enhancing quality of life and fostering cultural connection.
“Culture is a very important part of social fabric. It is the thread that connects communities. It is the thing that formulates your self-identity, creates your values, and it’s the thing that really connects people and brings people together,” she said.
Dubai, she added, has aimed to deliver strategies that provide opportunities for cultural industries to thrive organically and create that social cohesion.
For Anna Marks, global chair at Deloitte, the key lies in understanding the human need for connection and experiences, particularly among younger generations like Gen Z, who place a high value on belonging and social cohesion.
“When you look at some of the research out there around what Millennials and Gen Zs want, when they want to spend their money, they make choices, and they actually are telling us they want to spend their money on experiences and not product,” she said. “And that’s a really interesting trend.”
“You need to really come together, not just sort of cooperate by not getting in each other’s way, but deeply collaborate, agreeing what the vision is, building the solution together and delivering that. And (then) you move that into partnership and the economic aspect.”
To avoid creating unused facilities, Marks suggested repurposing venues for other uses, such as retail or community spaces.
“I think we should be excited about this sector,” she added.
Cybersecurity technology needs to move faster, says WEF panel
DUBAI: Artificial intelligence is a big topic of discussion at this year’s annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, which is being held under the central theme of “Collaboration for the Intelligent Age.”
A panel on Wednesday titled “Cutting through Cyber Complexity,” brought together experts from the private and public sectors to discuss the increasingly complex world of cybersecurity in an age dominated by technology.
Wired magazine’s global editorial director Katie Drummond, who moderated the panel, set the stage saying that “factors like AI and emerging technology, geopolitical instability, supply chain vulnerability and talent shortages” combined make cybersecurity considerations more complicated, potentially “exacerbating inequity across the board.”
As governments push the adoption of technology, they must also ensure that the devices and platforms people use are safe, said Malaysia’s minister of digital, Gobind Singh Deo.
Last year, for example, Malaysia implemented the Cyber Security Act, establishing regulatory standards for the country’s cyber defenses, amended its data protection laws and introduced data-sharing legislation, he said.
The most important thing now, in this digital revolution, is speed, according to Oscar Lopez, Spain’s minister for digital transformation and civil service.
In addition to regulation, which is devised and implemented in conjunction with the EU, Spain is investing in infrastructure, skills and education, he added.
With 66 percent of organizations being concerned about AI’s impact on cybersecurity, according to WEF’s latest “Global Security Outlook” report, there is an urgent need for governments and businesses to build systems to counter cyberattacks.
Hoda Al-Khzaimi, associate vice provost for research translation and entrepreneurship at New York University Abu Dhabi, highlighted that cyber attackers have access to information and opportunity as well as the agility to build platforms and increase the threat level of attacks.
However, she added, there is room for improvement in the structures required to counter those attacks as evidenced by the Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack in 2021.
Like Lopez, Al-Khzaimi emphasized the need for speed in building faster and more agile structures, saying that attackers take seconds to decimate a system, which will take months and years to rebuild.
This is partly because “larger companies are stuck with inertia and that’s really what’s causing all the issues,” said Jay Chaudhry, CEO, chairman and founder of IT security company Zscaler.
“Hackers have no inertia,” he said.
Chaudhry said organizations and governments need to move away from old technologies like firewalls and VPNs to a zero-trust cybersecurity architecture, which is based on the principle of not trusting anyone — even those inside the system or organization, unlike a firewall.
“Technology needs to move,” and it is not necessarily the government’s job to push it; if anything, “over-regulation can stop things,” he added.
The CEO and co-founder of industrial cybersecurity technology firm Dragos, Robert Lee, echoed the sentiment.
He said: “We need a lot more (of an) approach to harmonization of regulation, especially for multinational (companies).”
Lee also presented an alternate view to the adoption of emerging technologies and automation, highlighting the perils of digitization.
“Some of these private companies are so excited to take that automation journey … that they really don’t understand some of the systems they’re putting in place,” he said.
“This means that when something goes wrong, it’s difficult, if not impossible, to pinpoint the cause if the company hasn’t invested in the right systems ahead of time,” he added.
Lee said that there is a lot of conversation around “the next big thing” and AI, but “you have no idea how little is being done correctly. The basics do work. It’s just (that) a lot of companies aren’t doing the basics.”
Trust identified as cornerstone of journalism in AI era, WEF panel hears
- ‘Despite continued criticisms, people trust human more than robots to deliver the story,” says Mina Al-Oraibi, The National’s editor-in-chief
LONDON: Trust will remain the defining characteristic of journalism in the age of artificial intelligence, protecting the industry from being “taken over by robots,” panelists said on Tuesday.
Speaking at “Scrolling Media’s Future” on the second day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Mina Al-Oraibi, editor-in-chief of UAE daily The National, said trust had become a central pillar in the survival and evolution of journalism.
“We approach it (AI) in three different ways. One is organizing information, and that’s incredible, because there is all this information out there. We just don’t have enough time to process it, understand it,” she explained.
“Pillar number two is efficiency. Unfortunately, usually companies think efficiency means let people go, but actually it’s efficient to (consider) how do you free up more of their time, not doing the mundane tasks.”
However, she noted that the third aspect — verification — was where much of the concern lay.
The rise of AI as a disruptive force has significantly impacted journalism, particularly with the emergence of tools such as deepfakes and generative AI capable of mimicking human output. This has led to increased skepticism among audiences, even as traditional media faces ongoing criticism.
“With AI producing content that sounds like you but isn’t you, there’s a growing trust issue. Readers, despite their complaints about the media, still trust journalists more than machines. They trust a human to go out and gather the story,” Al-Oraibi said.
The Iraqi-British journalist, who has led the Abu Dhabi-based English-language newspaper since 2017, expressed optimism about journalism’s resilience, saying that such trajectory revealed a “kind of silver lining that there’s still a role for us, and it won’t be taken over by machines.”
Al-Oraibi illustrated her point with an example involving Justin Bieber, who sparked controversy at the start of the Israel-Hamas war by sharing an Instagram post with a photo of a demolished building in Gaza alongside the message “Praying for Israel.”
“It went viral because everybody thought because he’s a celebrity, he’s somebody they (can) trust,” she said. “(In episodes like this), we see the value of strong journalists. We see the value of news gathering and going out there and getting the story, and that’s what we want to have our journalists do.”
Speaking on the same panel, Daniel Roth, editor-in-chief and vice-president of content at LinkedIn, highlighted how the platform’s structure, which prioritizes content quality over popularity, has helped mitigate the impact of AI and misinformation.
“We have not done a lot of the attention economy work that other platforms have done that also keep it safe,” Roth explained, noting how, like in LinkedIn, “AI is going to stay away from doing anything highly opinionated.”
“If you have people who are experts and have very strong opinions and can sway an audience, I think that’s going to do well,” he said, adding that AI’s impact on breaking news — a core journalistic area — would remain limited.
James Harding, founder and editor of Tortoise Media, agreed with many points raised but warned the rapid development of AI tools capable of generating videos, images and stories will exacerbate the current information overload. This, he suggested, could have significant economic implications for media outlets.
“Human-generated information, verified information, reliable information, is going to become a smaller proportion of that (amount of info),” Harding explained. “At some point it’s going to be the case that advertising-based news media is going to find it harder and harder because it’s just managing to command a smaller amount of the public’s attention.”
Harding also discussed Tortoise Media’s recent acquisition of The Observer, the world’s oldest Sunday newspaper. While some view the purchase of a print-focused publication as counterintuitive in a digital-first era, Harding framed it as a strategic move to enhance Tortoise’s digital reach.
“We appreciated the value of print and what it could do in terms of broadcasting, the value of the journalism as a platform for advertising and as a way, in fact, of recruiting digital subscribers. But it was, what Mina was saying was that you have something that has an identity and a meaning to people, that you can then build a relationship in digital,” he said.
Lebanese social entrepreneur among Schwab Foundation awardees at WEF
- Aline Sara, co-founder of NaTakallam (Arabic for “we speak”), has been enabling refugees and other conflict-affected people to earn an income online
DUBAI: The co-founder of an online platform that hires refugees and displaced persons as online tutors, teachers and translators was among 18 recipients of the 2025 Schwab Foundation Award announced on the first day of the World Economic Forum Annual Meeting in Davos.
Aline Sara, co-founder of NaTakallam (Arabic for “we speak”), has been enabling refugees and other conflict-affected people to earn an income online and connect them with people around the world through language.
In this context, the social enterprise “disrupts the conventional approach to humanitarian aid” and uses the gig economy to promote sustainable solutions to major crises, according to the Schwab Foundation’s official statement.
Although the idea was inspired by the Syrian refugee crisis, Sara, a Lebanese citizen, has expanded the platform to serve displaced people around the world, reaching as far as Venezuela, Burundi and Yemen.
Launched with an initial offer of online Arabic conversation classes, NaTakallam proposes services ranging from translation, interpretation and transcription to an Arabic curriculum in partnership with Cornell University in the US. Other languages include Persian and Spanish to address the pressing needs of Venezuelan refugees.
The Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, in partnership with the Motsepe Foundation, awarded 18 social entrepreuners from 15 organizations whose groundbreaking solutions address urgent issues and drive positive change around the world.
“This year’s awardees are addressing health disparities from the United States to Zambia, creating income opportunities for displaced individuals, combatting deforestation in Central and West Africa, and improving the lives of vulnerable communities in India and beyond,” the foundation said in a statement.
The entrepreneurs were rewarded based on their business, social development and environmental models that are helping to build a more equitable and sustainable world.
According to the WEF, social entrepreneurship and innovation are gaining momentum worldwide, with more than 10 million social enterprises creating 200 million jobs and generating $2 trillion annually.
Despite their significant economic contribution and commitment to sustainable and inclusive development, social enterprises face a $1.1 trillion funding need.
At the Annual Meeting 2025, the Schwab Foundation aims to spotlight social entrepreneurs and innovators who are already leading the way with successful and innovative business models and, ultimately, help advance these solutions at scale to reach more of the world’s people.
Francois Bonnici, director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship, said: “Our world is grappling with instability, polarization and disenfranchisement while facing extreme, unpredictable weather events and disasters. It is also undergoing a radical transformation with both the green and digital transitions.
“Although this comes with economic opportunity, it also risks exacerbating existing inequalities or creating new ones,” he said. “In the face of these significant challenges, the need for bold and innovative solutions has never been more pressing. The work of social entrepreneurs and innovators is not just important, it is essential.”
Aramco retains MENA’s most valuable brand amid ‘outpacing’ regional growth
- The Saudi oil and gas giant was valued at $41.7bn, ranking 38th globally, while stc was ranked the strongest brand in the Middle East
- Among the rest of the region, e& boasts the fastest-growing brand value globally this year, with an eight-fold increase to $15.3bn
LONDON: Aramco has maintained its position as the Middle East and North Africa’s most valuable brand in the Global 500 2025 report by marketing consultation firm Brand Finance, leading the region amid a period of “outpacing” growth for MENA brands.
The Saudi oil and gas giant was valued at $41.7 billion, ranking 38th globally. However, its growth lagged behind regional counterparts, attributed to falling oil prices driven by a surplus that has persisted since the post-COVID-19 spike and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
“Middle Eastern brands continue to make their mark on the global stage, with a combined $127.4 billion brand value contribution to the Brand Finance Global 500 2025 ranking,” said David Haigh, chairman and CEO of Brand Finance.
Haigh highlighted Saudia Arabia’s particularly strong performance, saying the Kingdom accounts for $75.5 billion of the region’s total, with five Saudi brands securing places in the top 500.
Every year, Brand Finance evaluates 5,000 major brands, publishing over 100 reports across diverse sectors and countries. The rankings highlight the top 500 most valuable, and strongest, brands in several categories. Various criteria are used to determine brands rated as the strongest, in a type of credit rating, which is then used to determine the most valuable overall.
One of the other Saudi brands in the list, telecom giant stc, was named the ninth most valuable telecoms brand globally and the strongest brand in the Middle East, with a Brand Strength Index score of 88.7/100 and an AAA rating — marking a slight improvement compared to last year and placing it 66th in the global BSI rankings
Stc’s brand value rose by 16 percent, reaching $16.1 billion in 2025, up from $13.9 billion in 2024. This increase secures its position as the third most valuable brand in the region and the leading telecom brand in the Middle East.
The results of this year’s index are “a reflection of our leadership position and relentless pursuit of innovation and excellence,” commented Vice President of Corporate Relations at stc Group Mohammed R. Abaalkheil, who added that the “recognition pushes the group to think ahead to stay ahead.”
Brand Finance attributed stc’s performance to its successful implementation of the Masterbrand strategy, which has expanded the brand into new sectors such as banking, cybersecurity, and B2B IT services. Strategic M&A initiatives have further bolstered its leadership position regionally and internationally.
Abaalkheil added: “As we continue our journey in alignment with Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, we are committed to driving digital transformation and sustainable growth that impacts not just the region, but the world at large.”
Other Saudi brands in the index, including Al-Rajhi Bank, SNB, and SABIC, also made significant strides. These companies climbed 45, 20, and five spots, respectively, in the global rankings, collectively increasing their brand value by nearly $2 billion.
Outside Saudi Arabia, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. secured the 105th spot globally, making it the second most valuable MENA brand. ADNOC’s valuation surged 25 percent to $19 billion, the fastest among energy brands, driven by its decarbonization commitments unveiled during the COP28 climate conference in Dubai.
E& (formerly Etisalat) emerged as the world’s fastest-growing brand, with its value soaring eightfold to $15.3 billion, reflecting the success of its three-year rebranding strategy. In comparison, Nvidia has the highest like-for-like growth — 98 percent — making it the second fastest-growing brand value for 2025 thanks to a continued market demand for artificial intelligence chips.
“This year, Middle Eastern brands in the Global 500 ranking achieved a growth rate of 23 percent, more than double that of non-Middle Eastern brands at 11 percent,” said Andrew Campbell, managing director, Brand Finance Middle East. “This underscores the significant progress made by Middle Eastern brands as the region continues to invest in both tangible and intangible assets, committed to diversification beyond the oil and gas sector in the pursuit of global brand recognition.”
Globally, Apple retained its title as the most valuable brand, with its value rising 11 percent to $574.5 billion, despite below-average earnings in the tech sector due to weak Chinese market sales.
TikTok continued its rise, ranking seventh globally, even amid the recent US controversy and temporary bans. Incoming US President Donald Trump delayed the ban for 75 days, allowing TikTok to remain operational in the interim.
In contrast, German automaker Mercedes-Benz was the only brand among the top 25 to lose value, declining by 11 percent due to the sluggish European car market.
