Twitter/X Accused Of Helping Saudia Arabia In Human Rights Abuses

X, formerly known as Twitter is again in the hot waters. It has been accused in a civil US lawsuit of aiding Saudi Arabia to commit serious human rights abuses against its users. The report accuses the social media platform, X in disclosing confidential user data at the request of Saudi authorities back in July and December 2015 at a much higher rate than it has for the US, UK, or Canada.

Twitter/X Is Again In The Hot Waters

Areej al-Sadhan, the sister of a Saudi aid worker brought the lawsuit back in May. She forcibly disappeared and then later sentenced to 20 years in jail. The lawsuit clearly highlights the events surrounding the infiltration of the California company by three Saudi agents. Two of them were posing as Twitter employees in 2014 and 2015, which eventually led to the arrest of al-Sadhan’s brother, Abdulrahman. Reports claim that it led to the vulnerability of the identity of thousands of anonymous Twitter users, some of whom were later reportedly imprisoned and tortured as part of the government’s crackdown on conflict.

Lawyers for Al-Sadhan revised their claim last week to include new allegations on Twitter. X was accused of willfully ignoring or having knowledge of the Saudi government’s campaign under the leadership of then-chief executive Jack Dorsey.  It has been revealed that a top investor in the company also provided assistance to the kingdom because of financial concerns and efforts to keep close ties to the Saudi government. The sentenced man, Muhammad al-Ghamdi, 54, is actually the brother of a Saudi scholar and government critic living in banishment in the UK. According to the Saudi court records, al-Ghamdi was accused of having two accounts, which had a total of 10 followers altogether.

Ahmad Abouammo was convicted in the US for secretly acting as a Saudi agent and lying to the FBI. He accessed and sent confidential user data to Saudi Arabian officials. In the new lawsuit, it is claimed that he sent a message to Saud al-Qahtani, a close associate of Mohammed bin Salman, via the social media company’s messaging system, stating:

“proactively and reactively we will delete evil, my brother”.

The lawsuit also accuses X had “ample notice” of security risks to internal personal data. Moreover, there was a threat of insiders illegally accessing it, based on public reporting at the time.

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