Sultan to talk effects of Twitter in Arab Spring

Sultan Sooud Al Qassemi, who used Twitter during the Arab Spring, will speak at 3 p.m. Nov. 12 at the School of Journalism.

He currently has more than 146,500 followers.

Al Qassemi has written for publications such as The Financial Times, The Independent, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, The New York Times, Foreign Policy, Open Democracy and the Globe and Mail.

He is currently based in the United Arab Emirates.

Time Magazine said of Al Qassemi, “Commentators are still debating the extent to which media contributed to the 2011 Arab uprisings, but one thing’s for sure: to the extent that the revolution was tweeted, much of it came through the feed of Sultan Al Qassem.

“Al Qassemi tweeted live translations of communiqués from Egypt’s Tahrir Square and Yemeni dictator Ali Abdullah Saleh’s pulpit. He has also passed along links that exposed the excesses of autocracy.”

— Sydney Murray