Jamal Khashoggi was about to launch a campaign to discredit the use of the social network Twitter by the Saudi regime, when he was assassinated in Turkey. A New York Times investigation reveals how the social network has been infiltrated by the Saudi secret services and how troll farms, paid by the government, crush all attempts at criticism via this tool, including those of Khashoggi.
Jamal Khashoggi was for months under constant online attacks on Twitter. A real campaign of defamation and intimidation that lately had taken a very worrying turn. Shortly before he was framed and killed in the Saudi consulate in Ankara, Jamal Khashoggi had made a 5 000 dollars wire transfer to an activist with whom he was working to orchestrate an online information campaign denouncing the Saudi regime’s manipulations via Twitter.
“Saudi Arabia has become an illustration of how authoritarian governments can manipulate social media to silence critical voices while broadcasting their own version of reality”
→ extract of New York Times : “Saudis’ Image Makers: A Troll Army and a Twitter Insider”
The online attacks on Khashoggi on Twitter were not perpetrated by ardent defenders of Prince Mohammed Ben Salman or citizens annoyed by his tweets and criticisms, but by teams of hundreds of professionals paid by the Saudi government: “online trolls”, based in offices called “farms”. The famous Russian troll farms have in fact been copied in the Middle East since the beginning of the Arab Spring…
CIA and UNO confirm Mohammed Ben Salmans responsibility in Jamals brutal murder considering the crushing evidence. But the secret trial that has been held for the team that took down Khashoggi doesn’t seem to mention the prince at all.
The reveal of a whole web of spies
It’s end of 2019 and Saudi agents used their job at Twitter to spy on opponents of the regime in Riyadh. Two former employees of the firm and a Saudi were charged in the United States for providing Saudi Arabia with information on users from the social network, whose messages and posts were criticising the Saudi royal family.
These prosecutions, announced November 6th of 2019 by the U.S. justice, raise the question of the ability of a social network like Twitter to protect the confidential data of its users, especially in the face of attempts to attack or misuse of the data by repressive regimes. The three people charged are two former Twitter employees, an American and a Saudi, as well as another Saudi national accused of acting as an intermediary.
“These Saudi agents have been snooping on Twitter’s internal systems to obtain personal information about opponents of the Saudi regime and thousands of other users” explains David Anderson, the federal prosecutor in California. He added “we will not allow American companies or technologies to become tools of repression for foreign regimes”.
Ali Alzabarah, a 35-year-old Saudi man, and Ahmad A., a 41-year-old American, are accused of using their status as Twitter employees to obtain the email or IP addresses, phone numbers or even dates of birth from Twitter accounts and passing this data to Riyadh.
The first provided data from at least 6 000 accounts since 2015, including from an opponent of the Saudi royal family who has taken refuge in Canada, according to the indictment. To do so he joined Twitter in 2013 and worked his way up to an engineering position; this gave him access to the personal information and account activity of Twitter users, including phone numbers, internet addresses, login credentials, etc….
The second allegedly spied on several accounts between late 2014 and early 2015, in exchange for a luxury watch and at least 300 thousand dollars in an offshore account.
The third suspect, Ahmed Al. a 30-year-old Saudi, is accused of acting as an intermediary between the two men and his country’s government. He is also suspected of helping Ali Alzabarah. flee the United States in late 2015 after initial suspicions from his superiors.
Social networks: a new weapon of state control?
The revelations about Saudi Arabia’s manipulation of the population and the repression that can be exercised via a platform like Twitter are a new alarm bell that follows the one about the influence exerted by Cambridge Analytica thanks to Facebook data. It is now established that social networks and messaging systems are infiltrated by many determined and organized actors to influence and manipulate crowds. But a new situation is emerging that cannot be ignored: the States themselves are actors of this influence, as well as leading political parties, with or without the help of specialized companies. In the light of this observation, the laws on fake news that are flourishing everywhere in the major democracies seem quite out of place and unconvincing, with unsolvable basic questions: who will control the controller, and what control is possible?
Propaganda against propaganda, influencers against manipulations, alternative realities against official versions: social networks are more and more at the heart of a central and worrying issue, that of the freedom of speech but also that of cyber security and basically that of the quality of debates within modern societies. Whether they are democratic or not…
What now ?
We’re in 2022 and Elon Musk, just made an offer that Twitter couldn’t refuse. But the future Twitter owner has a very large definition of freedom of speech. Critics warn that Elon Musk is primarily concerned with power, not freedom.
What ever critics claim, the richest man in the world, will be calling the shots at social network headquarters, Twitter. What impact this takeover will have is currently intensely discussed on the international stage. While some analysts think the new owner is the best thing that could happen to Twitter, others see the future owner much more critically. This criticism relates in particular to Musk’s very wide interpretation of the concept of freedom of speech.
What does it mean for regimes like Saudi Arabia ?
Will they be free to continue their habits as before ? Saudi Arabia should be accountable for it’s actions and Elon Musk should be the one setting the straight path for Twitter. But while he’s defending an absolute freedom of speech and his utopian vision of a direct democracy (for Mars) ; he also praises the Chinese government for it’s economic on the on 100th anniversary of Chinese Communist Party and not only donates to the democrats but to the republicans as well. It can not be said that there’s a pattern of charming governments that represent an interest for Musk, but donating to both sides gives the impression that he wants to be good with the government no matter which side is in office right now, plus the charming statements towards a very controversial political party are out there.
One shouldn’t forget that Musk is a business man. Considering Saudi Arabia is part of the countries that use Twitter the most, punishing them through the platform would come at a great cost for Musk. Will he stand on the side of reason and morals or personal interests ? It is hard to tell.
Musk praising China https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/01/business/elon-musk-chinese-communist-party-intl-hnk/index.html
Direct democracy on Mars https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1008124944289370113
NY Times article https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/20/us/politics/saudi-image-campaign-twitter.html
By The European Institute for International Law and International Relations.
