Twitter News in Gulf Crisis: Qatar vs. Dubai

The official Twitter accounts for the 2 Dubai-based TV satellite news channels AlArabiya and Sky News Arabia were frequently seen idle on Twitter for more than 9 hours without a single tweet to their breaking news accounts! 

Qatar crisis is the topic everyone is talking about in the middle east. The crisis started in June 5th by 4 countries (Egypt, UAE, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain) cutting their diplomatic and trade relations with Qatar. Three countries are members of Gulf Cooperation Council, where Qatar is a member there as well.

Twitter is the most popular social media platform in the Gulf region. Hence, breaking news, rumors, leaks, discussions, etc all were being evolved in tweets, triggering viral trending Twitter hashtags sometimes.

Today marks the first conference for the foreign ministers of the 4 countries together to comment on Qatar's response to their demands in a press conference here in Cairo.

However, 10-hour gap is seen for the official Twitter accounts of three pan-Arab news channels, frequently. Which is a big NO!

This was the case for the official Twitter accounts for the 2 Dubai-based TV satellite news channels AlArabiya and Sky News Arabia were frequently seen idle on Twitter for more than 9 hours without a single tweet to their breaking news accounts!

While both TV channels were promoting the point of view of the 4 countries, same behavior was applicable to the official Twitter account of AlJazeera for its breaking news:

AlJazeera, that promotes Qatar point of view in the Gulf crisis, is also seen idle on Twitter for half a day!
This is a big no for any social media account for a news TV channel

It is 1:35PM Cairo time and no single tweet was published to AlJazeera breaking news account on Twitter!

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