You mean the same Arab Spring that sparked 4 or 5 civil wars (depending how you count), led to the rise of IS, and in the civil wars aftermaths caused more civil wars in neighbor countries that were invaded by foreign guerrilla fighters?

When I made some napkin calculations some time ago, Arab Spring and its fallout so far killed about 300.000 people and displaced millions. Is the positive non monetary value enough to compensate that much deaths and destruction?

> You mean the same Arab Spring that sparked 4 or 5 civil wars (depending how you count), led to the rise of IS

The rise of the group now called the Islamic State as an armed force controlling substantial territory started well before the Arab Spring, and is a pretty direct result of the US invasion and occupation of Iraq, and particular policy choices made during that occupation.

Admittedly, then it was just called the "Islamic State in Iraq". If you want to blame the Arab Spring for contributing the situation in which occasioned its next two name changes and its expansion into Syria, sure, but if it hadn't felt secure enough in Iraq to form separate groups to go fight in Syria rather than worrying about holding on to its (at the time) core territory, it couldn't have exploited that opportunity.

Sorry but I call bullshit on saying that "the arab spring" is the cause of ISIS and the syrian war.

The sectarian corrupt violent syrian state and the U.S. invasion of Irak are much better suspects

The Arab Spring revolution became the Syrian Civil War, which became IS. Don't take away the agency of people in other countries to be evil, just because you believe the US is.

> The Arab Spring revolution became the Syrian Civil War, which became IS.

No, the Islamic State in Iraq, which arose in Iraq before the Arab Spring, became the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (and later simply the Islamic State) after sending offshoots to fight in the Syrian Civil War, and then reintegrating those offshoots. But it is a mistake to say that the Syrian Civil War "became" IS; before the Arab Spring and Syrian Civil War, the Islamic State in Iraq was already a substantial armed force holding territory and heavy weapons, most of which were taken from the Iraqi military, which it became as it grew up fueled largely by resistance to the US occupation (and, for a while, its temporary attachment to the al-Qaeda brand as "al-Qaeda in Iraq", which was useful when al-Qaeda was the most visible brand in Islamist opposition to the U.S., though eventually they outgrew the need to be a franchise of a foreign brand.)

>Sorry but I call bullshit on saying that "the arab spring" is the cause of ISIS and the syrian war.

do you see a lot of difference between Iran's revolution and Arab Spring?

>The sectarian corrupt violent syrian state and the U.S. invasion of Irak are much better suspects

Granted similar elements - a major group of population dissatisfied with the governing power as well as US hand cooperating with the side/power opposing to that group - were present in Iran too. One can see how religious extremists hijack that dissatisfaction and use US' involvement to fuel it. So the US' involvement is a catalyst, not the root cause.

And that was started by a rise in grain prices thanks to crap harvests.

If anything, Facebook and Twitter kept a lid on things. Only when the governments cut the national net connections did things really hit the fan.

This likely because now people had to actually go out and talk to their neighbors to figure out what was happening, and thus were more easily pulled along.

The first two sentences of your link: "The role played by social media during the Arab Spring as a revolutionary wave of demonstrations and protests (both non-violent and violent), riots, and civil wars in the Arab world represents a highly controversial issue. The impact of social media on the events in the Middle East and North Africa as a factor of political uprising and turmoil is highly debatable and fostered both criticism and approval."

Given Twitter's complicity in freedom-of-speech curtailing activities in the US, France, Israel, and Turkey, Twitter's non-monetary value only goes as far as that non-monetary value provides them monetary value. I don't think this is worth considering from either an investment or ethical perspective. Twitter, like most corporations, is an amoral entity.

Because it's bullshit PR by Twitter.

I wouldn't be too quick to cast a positive on Arab Spring. Most of those countries have yet to recover and it is arguable that it was a precursor to the current migrant crisis.

I would agree that the democratic organizing power of twitter is impressive.

Why would anyone pay $10B for non-monetary value?

Because they think they can turn non-monetary value into $.

Because mind-share is sometimes more important than mere $. I'm not necessarily implying that buying Twitter for $10B is a good deal, but I can see why some market players would pay that money.

Twitter has its light side (Arab Spring) and dark side because Twitter is also number one platform on which spreading terrorism happen and for terrorist recruiting.

Twitter is also pretty heavy-handed on its censorship of US politics. For instance by blacklisting trending topics such as #WhichHillary when it had gained momentum. (when the protester went to her event with the quote about 'super predators' + #WhichHillary on a banner)

Sure, then they should be a non profit and be funded as such.

If they showed a single ad to anyone during that, then they lose the moral high ground.

Arab spring might have had CIA interventions. But twitter surely played a big role in making Urban India vote for Mr. Modi throwing a corrupt government out pretty badly.

Personally it was Twitter that educated me about some of the horrendous laws that the Indian government passes/planning to passed.