• this is, I would say, part of an overall effort here at the State Department to really better use technology, better use various applications of those technology, including social networking and social media to better communicate with the rest of the world and to do our job. You’re well aware of what we’re doing in terms of the briefing room here, Briefing 2.0, Facebook, our blog, and a lot of other efforts that we’ll talk about after this. 

• Also, a foundation will be created called the Alliance of Youth Movements. And a hub, an electronic hub, again, anyone will have access to it around the world. Now, this conference – the entire conference will be streamed by MTV and by Howcast. We are – we at the State Department are one partner. In fact, we take a back seat to what the private sector is doing, which is just fabulous. But we’re happy to have gotten this thing started, at any rate. 

• We feel that around the world, young people are using the internet to push back against violence in a new way, using social networking, convening large groups to have conversations, basically, to share information. And this is something that al-Qaida and the violent extremist groups cannot stand. They cannot stand criticism. You know, sometimes they’ll post videos on YouTube until YouTube takes them down, and they get tremendous amounts of critical comments. They don’t want that. Their whole philosophy is based on trying to isolate potential members and keep them away from critical comment, from discussion. So we want to take exactly the opposite tack, and we think that the technology that exists today is on our side; it’s not on the extremists’ side.

Bravo to the State Department for this effort, there will undoubtedly be problems and I will guarantee some will accuse them of propaganda and probably a lot worse, but in this world, if you aren’t using the internet to communicate and collaborate, you’ll lose every time.