As a product of a conservative society, the Arab youth found social networking services like Twitter and Facebook great tools to challenge the status quo and shake things up. However, since public and private personas are very different things in the Middle East, they needed to find a space where they could be true to themselves without being exposed to scrutiny.
So they went underground.
This panel describes how the local youth has found ways to navigate through the limitations imposed by government censorship and the social requirements of their conservative society, creating thriving private social networks that help them to share, communicate freely and define themselves as individuals.
It also discusses the opportunities that this unique online ecology creates and why it is a precursor of things to come in other markets.