London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 09, 2025

Twitter suspends accounts linked to Saudi spying case

Twitter suspends accounts linked to Saudi spying case

Weeks after U.S. authorities brought a spying case against three Saudi nationals for digging up dissidents’ personal data at Twitter, the company suspended tens of thousands of accounts that appear to be linked to one suspect’s company.
Twitter announced the suspension of the accounts on Friday, saying only that they were linked “to a significant state-backed information operation” originating in Saudi Arabia.

It named as the source of the activity a Riyadh-based social media marketing company called Smaat, which has ties to several high-profile Saudi figures and news outlets.

Smaat is run by Ahmed Aljbreen, according to his LinkedIn account and other social media profiles. The FBI complaint, announced in November, said a man also known by that name controls a Saudi social media marketing company that does work for the royal family.

Twitter and the Department of Justice declined to say whether the two referred to the same person, although a federal source familiar with the matter said U.S. law enforcement believes that to be the case.

Aljbreen, who is also known as Ahmed Almutairi, could not be reached for comment.

The spying case pointed an unusually public finger at Saudi Arabia, a staunch U.S. ally, and cast an uncomfortable light on the practices Twitter uses to protect its users’ personal data.

Aljbreen is accused of acting as a go-between for the Saudi officials and two former Twitter employees who used their positions to access email addresses, phone numbers and internet protocol addresses of government critics.

Twitter learned of the unauthorized access in late 2015, according to the U.S. complaint. A Twitter spokesman declined to comment Friday on why the company did not take down Smaat’s information operation earlier.

In its blog post Friday, Twitter said it had removed about 5,929 accounts which targeted discussions about Saudi Arabia and sought to advance the kingdom’s geopolitical interests, saying they violated its “platform manipulation policies.”

Those accounts represented “the core portion of a larger network of more than 88,000 accounts,” which Twitter said were “amplifying messages favorable to Saudi authorities” through “aggressive liking, retweeting and replying.”

Twitter has permanently suspended all of the accounts and disclosed data on the core set, as well as a representative sample of the larger network.

Saudi Arabian government representatives did not reply to a request for comment on Friday.

Twitter said its investigation traced the fake activity back to Smaat, which it said managed a range of accounts for unnamed “high-profile individuals” and government departments.

Smaat’s website, which is no longer online but is visible via the Internet Archive, showed clients included the Future Investment Initiative, an annual conference organized by the kingdom’s sovereign wealth fund to further Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s goal of attracting foreign investment.

According to the website, Smaat performed work for the Riyadh Summit, a series of events held during U.S. President Donald Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia in 2017.

The website also listed as “Smaat Projects” two Arabic-language news accounts popular with young Saudis: HashKSA and SaudiNews50, which remain active on Twitter and have millions of followers. The accounts both tweet content supportive of Saudi policies.

Neither outlet responded to a request for comment.

As of late 2018, Smaat’s website was hosted on the same server as SaudiNews50.co and a website called Vision2030.com, which is the name of the crown prince’s economic reform plan. The server hosted few other websites, which is often an indicator of common ownership.

Twitter said in September it had suspended the account of former Saudi royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani and others linked to Saudi Arabia’s “state-run media apparatus,” as well as accounts in the United Arab Emirates and Egypt similarly amplifying pro-Saudi messages.

Qahtani, a close confidante of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, ran the royal court’s media center as well as an “electronic army” tasked with protecting the kingdom’s image and attacking its perceived enemies online.

The latest suspensions follow investigations by Twitter’s site integrity team. While most of the content involved was in Arabic, some “related to events relevant to Western audiences,” including sanctions on Iran and appearances by Saudi government officials in Western media, Twitter said in its blog post.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
Trump Claims FBI Planted 274 Agents at Capitol Riot, Citing Unverified Reports
India: Internet Suspended in Bareilly Amid Communal Clashes Between Muslims and Hindus
Supreme Court Extends Freeze on Nearly $5 Billion in U.S. Foreign Aid at Trump’s Request
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
China Deploys 2,000 Workers to Spain to Build Major EV Battery Factory, Raising European Dependence
Speed Takes Over: How Drive-Through Coffee Chains Are Rewriting U.S. Coffee Culture
U.S. Demands Brussels Scrutinize Digital Rules to Prevent Bias Against American Tech
Ringo Starr Champions Enduring Beatles Legacy While Debuting Las Vegas Art Show
Private Equity’s Fundraising Surge Triggers Concern of European Market Shake-Out
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
×