Twitter, the social media giant, presently known as X has been facing allegations in a revised civil US lawsuit of aiding Saudi Arabia engaging in severe human rights abuses against its users, The Guardian reported.
It dictates that X has disclosed confidential user data at the request of Saudi authorities at a much higher rate than it has for the Canada, UK, or the US.
The lawsuit, initially filed last May by Areej al-Sadhan, the sister of a Saudi aid worker stating her forced disappearance followed by a 20 years jail sentence, has been revised to include new allegations, shedding light on the company’s alleged complicity in the Saudi government’s campaign to suppress dissent and target critics.
The lawsuit revolves around the infiltration of X’s California headquarters by three Saudi agents, two of whom posed as Twitter employees in 2014 and 2015. These infiltrations eventually led to the arrest of al-Sadhan’s brother, Abdulrahman, and exposed the identities of thousands of anonymous Twitter users, some of whom were reportedly detained and tortured as part of the Saudi government’s crackdown on dissent.
Allegations in the lawsuit claim that X, under the leadership of then-CEO Jack Dorsey, not only turned a blind eye to the Saudi government’s campaign but actively assisted the kingdom due to financial considerations and maintaining close ties to kingdom, one of the top investors in the company.
The legal filing reveals that X was originally seen as a critical platform for democratic movements during the Arab Spring, causing concern for the Saudi government as early as 2013.
The new lawsuit comes in the wake of Human Rights Watch’s condemnation of Saudi Arabia for sentencing a man to death based solely on his Twitter and YouTube activity, signaling an escalation in the government’s crackdown on freedom of expression.
The convicted man, Muhammad al-Ghamdi, is the brother of a Saudi scholar and government critic residing in the UK. He was accused of having two accounts with 10 followers combined and 1000 tweets, primarily consisting of retweets from government critics.
In December 2014, the Saudi crackdown began with Ahmad Abouammo, who was later convicted in the US for secretly working as a Saudi agent and lying to the FBI. Abouammo accessed and sent confidential user data to Saudi officials. After resigning in May 2015, Abouammo continued to contact Twitter to relay requests from Bader al-Asaker, a senior aide of Mohammed bin Salman, for the identities of confidential users.
The lawsuit claims that Abouammo indicated these requests were made on behalf of his “old partners in the Saudi government”. The new lawsuit, alleged that he messaged Saud al-Qahtani, a close aide to Mohammed bin Salman, via the social media company’s messaging system, stating “proactively and reactively we will delete evil, my brother.”
Twitter “did not simply ignore all these red flags … it was aware of the malign campaign”, the lawsuit claims.
Twitter would later notify users who had been exposed, telling them their data “may” have been targeted, but did not provide more specific information about the scale or certainty that the breach had, in fact, occurred
The Guardian stated
The allegations against X have prompted renewed scrutiny of the company’s actions and its ties to governments with questionable human rights records. Lawyers for Areej al-Sadhan emphasize their commitment to pursuing justice for her brother and holding X accountable for its alleged complicity in human rights abuses.
