This story is not really about a boy or a clock, it’s about authorities who have shown themselves to be ignorant and beyond every law. And the power of social media.
Ahmed Mohamed, a 14-year-old-boy, was arrested in Texas for bringing to school a homemade clock teachers mistook for a bomb a detention some claim was due to his Muslim background.
Officials at MacArthur High School in Irving alerted police because they thought the device was a "hoax bomb".
Ahmed Mohamed's arrest has been sharply criticized. Texas police have decided not to charge a 14-year-old Muslim boy arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school.
Interestingly enough, despite this alleged concern that Mohamed was holding something dangerous, the school was not alerted, placed on lock-down, or otherwise made safe against a potential bomb blast. Mohamed himself was arrested in the school office, with no one apparently very concerned that a bomb might go off at any time.
Last week, over 700,000 Tweets were found with the hashtag #IStandWithAhmed, with sentiments ranging from serious discussions of racism, ignorance, and STEM education, to light-hearted pictures of solidarity featuring people bringing their own digital clocks to their schools and offices.
“I built a clock to impress my teacher but when I showed it to her she thought it was a threat to her. I’m very sad that she got the wrong impression of it”
This story highlights the power of social media to turn what would have been an otherwise unknown local issue into a moment of contemplation for the whole world. Because a few Twitter-savvy bloggers picked up the story and shared it widely, Ahmed quickly became international news and was applauded by Hillary Clinton and President Obama...
As support pours in from across the world, #IStandWithAhmed continues to buoy people's awareness. Mark Zuckerberg and Google have all used the hashtag as they invited Ahmed to meet with them and encouraged him to keep building stuff.
This was a good thing. This boy was wronged, and the support of millions of strangers helped rectify that injustice. But the thing is, that online mobs are insatiable in their rush to deliver justice, and more often than not, that justice can itself be unjust. In this case it was for the good cause.
The woman behind #IStandWithAhmed hashtag
Amneh Jafari is a senior at UT Arlington and when she heard about the teen arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school, she tweeted her support with #IStandWithAhmed and started an international movement. Amneh said she had no idea the impact she would have on Ahmed Mohamed, after he was arrested.
Her hashtag took off on social media, and has been tweeted over 600,000 times first day, according to Twitter analytic service Topsy.
I guess this is not the end of this sensitive story.