Twitter Boots Saudi Arabia State Media Accounts

The Independent reports:

Twitter suspended the account of former Saudi royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani on Friday, nearly a year after he was sacked over his suspected role in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

The social network also separately removed accounts linked to Saudi Arabia’s “state-run media apparatus” and others in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt, all of them amplifying pro-Saudi messages, according to a company blogpost.

Mr Qahtani, a close confidante of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, ran the royal court’s media centre as well as an electronic army tasked with protecting the kingdom’s image and attacking its perceived enemies online.

Twitter released new data about account removals re: information operations originating in the UAE, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, China, Spain, and Ecuador. Helpful reminder that this is a global issue, and Twitter is the only platform releasing this kind of data: https://t.co/8q4NcJeGLh

— Craig Silverman (@CraigSilverman) September 20, 2019

Twitter suspends account of former top Saudi aide implicated in Khashoggi killing https://t.co/rRLGD56UBZ

— Natasha Fatah (@NatashaFatah) September 20, 2019

NEW: Twitter suspends the account of former Saudi royal court adviser suspected of being involved in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, @Hadas_Gold reports https://t.co/hF20k0bex0

— Donie O’Sullivan (@donie) September 20, 2019