Twitter said in September it had suspended the account of former Saudi royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani and others linked to Saudi Arabia’s “state-run media apparatus,” as well as accounts in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt similarly amplifying pro-Saudi messages. The server hosted few other websites, which is often an indicator of common ownership. Neither outlet responded to a request for comment.Īs of late 2018, Smaat’s website was hosted on the same server as and a website called, which is the name of the crown prince’s economic reform plan. The accounts both tweet content supportive of Saudi policies. The website also listed as “Smaat Projects” two Arabic-language news accounts popular with young Saudis: HashKSA and SaudiNews50, which remain active on Twitter and have millions of followers. Those accounts represented “the core portion of a larger network of more than 88,000 accounts,” which Twitter said were “amplifying messages favorable to Saudi authorities” through “aggressive liking, retweeting and replying.” In its blog post Friday, Twitter said it had removed about 5,929 accounts which targeted discussions about Saudi Arabia and sought to advance the kingdom’s geopolitical interests, saying they violated its “platform manipulation policies.” A Twitter spokesman declined to comment Friday on why the company did not take down Smaat’s information operation earlier.
Twitter learned of the unauthorized access in late 2015, according to the U.S. ally, and cast an uncomfortable light on the practices Twitter uses to protect its users’ personal data.Īljbreen is accused of acting as a go-between for the Saudi officials and two former Twitter employees who used their positions to access email addresses, phone numbers and internet protocol addresses of government critics. The spying case pointed an unusually public finger at Saudi Arabia, a staunch U.S. law enforcement believes that to be the case.Īljbreen, who is also known as Ahmed Almutairi, could not be reached for comment. Twitter and the Department of Justice declined to say whether the two referred to the same person, although a federal source familiar with the matter said U.S. The FBI complaint, announced in November, said a man also known by that name controls a Saudi social media marketing company that does work for the royal family.
Smaat is run by Ahmed Aljbreen, according to his LinkedIn account and other social media profiles.
It named as the source of the activity a Riyadh-based social media marketing company called Smaat, which has ties to several high-profile Saudi figures and news outlets. Twitter announced the suspension of the accounts on Friday, saying only that they were linked “to a significant state-backed information operation” originating in Saudi Arabia. FILE PHOTO - The Twitter logo is displayed on a screen on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in New York City, U.S., September 28, 2016.