The Qatari Forum for Authors continued its activities remotely, as part of its events for the second week of the blessed month of Ramadan, where it held a lecture entitled “The Relationship between Author and Technology”, presented by the writer Khaled Al-Ammari, a specialist in information technology, on the Forum channel on YouTube.

Khaled Al-Ammari focused on two main points. The first is the importance of the writer’s presence on the “Internet,” and the second one relates to how the writer deals with the information provided by the Web. He also talked about the tax that the writer could earn as a result of undocumented information available on the Internet.

Al-Ammari noted the importance of technology after it became a part of life, especially after the Corona virus, because without the use of this technology, life would have stopped, and there was no distance education or remote work, and if time returned to about 20 years ago, in the absence of technology, life would have stopped.

Al-Ammari stressed the necessity of the writer’s presence on various social media sites, to bridge the gap between him and technology, because of the importance it represents in achieving its spread, introducing his publication, publishing his creative works, and then presenting them to all parts of the world.

Mr. Al-Ammari, the researcher in information technology said: The Internet has become one of the main sources of information, which is easy to obtain through this Internet, but the matter remains related to the credibility of the content presented on the Internet, and the importance of its credibility, to be a helper for the writer on which to build new ideas and give it his identity in addition to what the Internet provides as a means to build positive criticism.

Al-Ammari described the Internet as a great opportunity to achieve cross-fertilization of ideas, which makes it a meeting place for all individuals and peoples, various ideas and references, instead of isolating the writer from the world, as well as its role in facilitating access to information, after it was very difficult to access.

He also presented samples of information sites on the Internet, including the “wiki” sites, the most famous of which is “Wikipedia”, which is considered an encyclopedia in itself. He called for intensifying the presence of Qatari authors through these sites, and providing them with all their creativity, especially since Qatar is rich in a large number of creative people in various creative fields.

He added: It is necessary for writers to be present on these sites and market their work, and to create accounts for them through various social platforms, in a manner that contributes to spreading the creativity of Qatari authors, and introducing the Qatari culture, which is characterized by wealth and distinction, as well as the abundance of unique creative works, which is what the Qatari writer achieves wide areas of spread, justifying his call for the importance of the presence of writers on social networking sites, to the power of these sites, in a way that surpasses televisions, which in turn facilitates the authors’ access to many and varied sections of their visitors.

Khaled Al-Ammari warned about how to use the Internet, especially with the amount of information available on this network, which may be undocumented or not reliable, which urges authors to beware of it, and not to build conclusions or analyzes on it, as well as the need to invest their skills in tracking what information is broadcast to ensure its credibility.

In this context, Al-Ammari cited the news circulating about the Corona crisis, from which many false news appeared, especially related to the treatment and vaccine for the virus, warning of the danger of extracting information randomly, without checking, and making sure of its credibility, and the reliability it has, so that it does not affect the construction of their thinking and their information, especially if the author will write about it, circulate it, or conclude from it.

The guest of the forum pointed out to sites that can verify to their visitors the validity of the news and highlight their credibility, through a professional team working in them.

The Qatari Forum for Authors continues its cultural activities as a cultural body affiliated with the Ministry of Culture and Sports that is concerned with caring for authors, and the forum aims to interest authors, especially in raising the cultural level of authors, in accordance with the Minister of Culture and Sports Decision No. (91) of 2018 establishing the Qatari Forum for Authors and adopting its founding contract and statute.