Twitter remains as a toxic cesspool.
Elon Musk’s attempt to clean it up seems to be over.
Now one Twitter employee has exposed a deeply troubling Saudi problem.
Twitter is a black box social media platform.
Nobody is clear on the algorithm, the number of fake users, and who specifically controls it.
And the cloak-and-dagger nature of Twitter was accentuated by the fact that there was an alleged spy within the company.
Bloomberg reported that “a former Twitter Inc. employee was convicted of spying for Saudi Arabia by turning over personal information of platform users who’d used anonymous handles to criticize the Kingdom and its royal family. Ahmad Abouammo, a US resident born in Egypt, was found guilty by a jury Tuesday of charges including acting as an agent for Saudi Arabia, money laundering, conspiracy to commit wire fraud and falsifying records, following a two-week trial in San Francisco federal court. He faces 10 to 20 years in prison when he’s sentenced.”
When Elon Musk first offered to buy Twitter, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal—one of the major shareholders in the company—publicly rejected the offer before eventually reversing course.
The prince said that Twitter had an “intrinsic value” beyond the $44 billion offered by Musk.
Perhaps that “intrinsic value” was the ability to spy on critics of Saudi Arabia.
Bloomberg added that “Abouammo, a media partnership manager for Twitter in 2015, maintained he was simply doing his job promoting the nascent social media network in the Middle East and North Africa. Prosecutors alleged his relationship with a top aide to Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, now the de-facto ruler of Saudi Arabia, went much further – and darker – to help the Crown Prince silence his critics. The jury was shown evidence that Abouammo received a Hublot watch and $300,000 in wire transfers – which the US said were bribes from the MBS aide, Bader Al- Asaker, in exchange for confidential Twitter account information on Saudi dissidents.”
This is one of the reasons why social media is toxic.
Nobody is ever truly anonymous, and it’s unclear who has user data and what they’re doing with it.
Twitter and other multinational corporations do not have American values.
They do not care about upholding the principles of free speech.
With so many hidden interests operating in the shadows, it’s no wonder the entire media establishment came crashing down on Musk when it looked like he was going to seize control of Twitter.
Stay tuned to Unmuzzled News for any updates to this ongoing story.
