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In December 2022, former Twitter employee Ahmad Abuanmo was found guilty of accepting bribes from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in exchange for confidential account information of dissidents using the website. The sister of Abdurrahman al-Sadan, who was allegedly kidnapped and tortured for running a Twitter account critical of Saudi Arabia, is now dead. filed a lawsuit He accused Twitter of violating the law by forcing its employees to reveal their identities.
Aliji Al-Sadan has filed a complaint on behalf of her and her brother under the Corrupt Organizations Influenced by Raiders (RICO) Act. Her brother Abdurrahman was sentenced to 20 years in prison for supporting terrorism. In her complaint, Alige accused Twitter of her brother’s “providing identifiable information to the Saudi government in clear violation of its terms of service.” She continued, “This puts all Twitter users at risk. As a result, Saudi Arabia has kidnapped, tortured and imprisoned my brother just because he criticized Saudi oppression on his Twitter account. Through a sham trial, he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.”” The Saudi government appears to deny contact with Mr. Abdurrahman’s family, but it is not known if Mr. Abdurrahman is still alive.
Abuanmo and another former Twitter employee, Ali Alzabara, accessed sensitive Twitter user data 30,892 times in 2015, according to the complaint. He then allegedly handed over 6,000 of his Twitter users his account identification information to Saudi Arabia, including names, dates of birth, device identifiers, phone numbers, IP addresses, and session IP history associated with user accounts. .
While Twitter will likely defend itself by claiming that it did not authorize or be aware of Saudi espionage, the complaint also alleges that Al-Zabala provided user information to Saudi Arabia in late 2015. It also said intelligence agencies alerted the company. Jack Dorsey, Twitter’s then-CEO, warned that he had met with Mohammed bin Salman “with full knowledge.” [Saudi Arabia’s] Malicious activities and various crimes,” the complaint reads.
As Washington Post Two other lawsuits have been filed against Twitter in connection with Saudi spying on its website, the company said. However, one of them was dismissed after failing to establish a connection between the 2015 breach and the hacking of the plaintiff’s mobile phone three years later, leading to the imprisonment of the plaintiff’s family and friends. And Saudi Arabia isn’t the only country to spy on websites. Former Twitter security chief turned whistleblower Peitor Zatko said last year that the company had been warned that Chinese intelligence agents were included in its payroll.