Secretary Clinton to Participate in an Online Dialogue with Egyptian Youth Hosted by Egyptian Online Portal Masrawy.com

Secretary Clinton to Participate in an Online Dialogue with Egyptian Youth Hosted by Egyptian Online Portal Masrawy.com

Notice to the Press

Office of the Spokesman

Washington, DC

February 22, 2011

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On February 23, Secretary Clinton will respond to questions from Egyptian youth during a social media dialogue hosted by the Egyptian online news and information portal Masrawy.com.

On February 20, Masrawy.com launched a dedicated page on their website titled "Hillary Clinton Engages in Dialogue with Egyptian Youth.” The page is specially designed to collect questions from Egyptians, from which Masrawy will choose several to conduct an exclusive interview with Secretary Clinton. Masrawy’s U.S.-based correspondent Dr. Ahmed Ghanim will moderate the discussion in the State Department’s studio on February 23, and the interview will appear on www.masrawy.com later that day.

Users are invited to submit written and video questions at Masrawy.com, via Masrawy’s Twitter feed @masrawyfans, or the Department of State’s Arabic Twitter account, @USAbilAraby.

Masrawy.com also collected questions in Tahrir Square during the recent gathering on Friday, February 18.

To date, users have submitted nearly 6,500 written questions, videos and audio files for the social media dialogue with Secretary Clinton.

According to the site, Masrawy.com is Egypt’s first and largest interactive online portal hosting a variety of content and channels including news, videos, sports, games, mobile applications, mail, classifieds and other valuable services. Masrawy.com attracts nearly 600,000 unique visitors per day, 70% of whom are Egyptians. In addition, youth make up a large share of Masrawy’s audience—51% of the site’s users are ages 16-34.

In Egypt, youth played an instrumental role in the unprecedented protests that have created a new chapter in the country’s history. The United States is committed to engaging with youth and civil society around the world, whose voices play a vital role in shaping their communities and future. Furthermore, as Secretary Clinton reiterated in her recent speech on Internet Rights and Wrongs: Choices & Challenges in a Networked World, protecting the universal human rights of freedom of expression and freedom of association online as well as offline are central to the United States’ foreign policy agenda.