Two former Twitter employees have been charged by the Justice Department with spying for Saudi Arabia. According to the agency, the employees did this by “accessing the company’s information on dissidents who use the platform, marking the first time federal prosecutors have publicly accused the kingdom of running agents in the United States,” The Washington Post reported.
One of the accused is an associate of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. According to the CIA, the prince likely ordered the assassination of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Istanbul in 2018.
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The Twitter case highlights the issue of foreign powers exploiting U.S. social media platforms to identify critics and suppress their voices, The Washington Post reported. It raises concerns about the ability of Silicon Valley to protect the private information of dissidents and other users from repressive governments.
One of the former Twitter employees is Ahmad Abouammo, a U.S. citizen who, according to court papers, is believed to have spied on the accounts of three users on behalf of the government in Riyadh.
Additionally, Abouammo is charged with falsifying an invoice to obstruct an FBI investigation.
The second former Twitter employee is Ali Alzabarah, a Saudi citizen. He is accused of accessing the personal data of more than 6,000 Twitter accounts in 2015 on behalf of Saudi Arabia, including an account that belonged to a prominent dissident, Omar Abdulaziz.
There was also a third individual, Saudi citizen Ahmed Almutairi who acted as an intermediary between Saudi officials and the Twitter employees, prosecutors said. He is also charged with spying.
“The three men are accused of working with a Saudi official who leads a charitable organization belonging to Mohammed. Based on a description of the charity, the official is Bader Al Asaker. (This) was confirmed by a person familiar with the case who spoke on the condition of anonymity… Asaker’s charity, MiSK, belongs to Mohammed, who is referred to in the complaint as Royal Family Member 1,” The Washington Post reported.
“The criminal complaint unsealed today alleges that Saudi agents mined Twitter’s internal systems for personal information about known Saudi critics and thousands of other Twitter users,” said U.S. Attorney David L. Anderson. “We will not allow U.S. companies or U.S. technology to become tools of foreign repression in violation of U.S. law.”
The indictment runs counter to President Trump’s close ties to the Saudi government. “The indictment points an unusually public finger at Saudi Arabia, a U.S. ally that maintains warm ties with President Donald Trump despite its bad human rights record,” Reuters reported.
Saudi Arabia has not commented publicly on the complaint.
