'Ordinary' Arabs to retake Internet: Wikipedia founder

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2008

SHARM EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) — An explosion in Internet usage in the Middle East by "ordinary" people will show the world that the region is just like anywhere else, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales said on Sunday.

"Too often when people around the world reflect on the situation in the Middle East they focus on extremism and the different problems," Wales told journalists at the World Economic Forum for the Middle East.

But with current total Internet usage by one billion people set to double in the next five to 10 years, Wales said that "we're going to start hearing from ordinary people."

"And I think that ordinary people are far more moderate and far more ordinary than the unfortunately polarised views of extremes you see coming out," the founder of the...