{"id":40899,"date":"2019-09-20T12:22:46","date_gmt":"2019-09-20T12:22:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40899"},"modified":"2019-09-20T12:22:46","modified_gmt":"2019-09-20T12:22:46","slug":"twitter-suspends-thousands-of-fake-accounts-from-uae","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=40899","title":{"rendered":"Twitter suspends thousands of fake accounts from UAE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

Twitter has suspended a large network of 4,258 accounts which it said were operated exclusively from the United Arab Emirates\u00a0(UAE<\/a>), employing fake names and tweeting mostly about Qatar<\/a> and Yemen.<\/p>\n

It also removed a network of 267 accounts in the UAE and Egypt<\/a> which Twitter said<\/a> were engaged in a “multi-faceted information operation” targeting Qatar and Iran while amplifying messages supportive of the Saudi government.<\/p>\n

The company said those accounts were managed by a private company called DotDev, which identifies itself on its website as a “custom software solutions company based in Abu Dhabi.” DotDev also has an Egyptian affiliate based in Giza, outside of Cairo.<\/p>\n

Twitter<\/a>‘s actions follow on the heels of Facebook’s removal last month of 350 fake accounts and pages promoting Saudi propaganda, which marked the first time a tech company had linked such activity back to the Saudi government.<\/p>\n

Facebook<\/a> said at the same time it had also suspended a separate network of more than 350 accounts linked to marketing firms called New Waves in Egypt and Newave in the UAE.<\/p>\n

‘Platform manipulation’<\/h2>\n

Twitter has also suspended the account of former Saudi royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani<\/a> on Friday, nearly a year after he was sacked over his suspected role in the murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Al-Qahtani, a close confidante of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS<\/a>), ran the royal court’s media centre as well as an electronic army tasked with protecting the kingdom’s image and attacking its perceived enemies online.<\/p>\n

He dictated Saudi Arabia’s official line on issues including a diplomatic dispute with Qatar and security and human rights.<\/p>\n

Twitter declined to specify the precise reason or timing for al-Qahtani’s suspension, saying only that he had violated the company’s “platform manipulation” policies.<\/p>\n

Records of his tweets are not being added to its archive of state-backed information operations, the company said in its blog post.<\/p>\n

Al-Qahtani has not tweeted since October 22, shortly after he was fired, but sources told Reuters in January that he continued to wield considerable influence behind the scenes.<\/p>\n

The former royal adviser<\/span>, who led fiery social media campaigns against critics of Saudi Arabia<\/a>, has not appeared publicly since the murder of the Saudi journalist, and his current whereabouts are a subject of fevered speculation.<\/p>\n

Although the Saudi public prosecutor has said al-Qahtani participated in a plan to repatriate Khashoggi, officials have refused to disclose whether he was arrested and sources have said he was not among those put on trial for the murder.<\/span><\/p>\n

Twitter suspended six other accounts linked to the Saudi government which were presenting themselves as independent journalistic outlets “while tweeting narratives favourable to the Saudi government,” it said.<\/p>\n

The Saudi government communications office did not immediately respond to Reuters request for comment on Friday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\n SOURCE:
\n Al Jazeera and news agencies<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Twitter has suspended a large network of 4,258 accounts which it said were operated exclusively from the United Arab Emirates\u00a0(UAE), employing fake names and tweeting mostly about Qatar and Yemen. It also removed a network of 267 accounts in the UAE and Egypt which Twitter said were engaged in a “multi-faceted information operation” targeting Qatar…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":40900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40899","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40899","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40899"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40899\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}