The Fourth Annual Meeting of the Arab Internet Governance Forum will start tomorrow in Beirut and run through Friday, December 18. As a cooperating partner in the forum and in line with our new digital rights focus, SMEX will lead social media documentation of the sessions, in collaboration with NDU media lecturer Rouba El Helou, by a group of journalism students from around Lebanon.
The aim of the coverage is to enrich content about digital rights from our region, especially in Arabic. We hope to help conference attendees and a more general audience gain greater understanding about Internet policy and how it affects their daily lives. Finally, the coverage will serve as a resource for mapping the status of various policies and for potential lobbying efforts for change.
In addition, we are partnering with Ogero, the organizer of this year’s forum, to host a competition for the best social media coverage. We will distribute five prizes to the top posts shared on social media. A specialized jury will select the best blogpost, tweet, video and Facebook post based on certain criteria. The jury includes: Dr. Dima Saber (media researcher with focus on digital media for social change), Maya Rahal (managing editor at  Wamda), and Khodor Salameh (blogger).
The jury will refer to certain criteria to choose the best content, the criteria for each category include:

• Top Tweets 

1. Educational tweets
2. Most Retweets
3. Most Likes
4. Includes multimedia (Photo, video, etc.)

• Top Blogpost

1. Content reflecting the session
2. Using visuals
3. Structure
4. Most shared
5. Most comment

• Top Video

1. Originality of concept
2. Presentation  of the topic
3. Best production value
4. Most shared
5. Most comments

• Top Facebook Post

1. Accuracy and insightfulness of IGF-related content
2. Most likes/shares
3. Most comments)
4. Includes multimedia (Photo, video, etc.)

We will be following various hashtags during the event: #ArabIGF, #AIGF, #AIGF4, #AIGF2015.
The winners will be announced after the last session during the forum, the winner must be present to receive the prize. Check the website for the Arab IGF to learn more, and watch the promotional video below.