Canada -
Saudi Arabia relations have been heavily deteriorated recently due to
Canada's decision to condemn clearly and openly the severe violation
of human rights in the Arab kingdom.
Aaron
Mate of the Real
News revealed that a kingdom-linked Twitter
account has even threatened Canada with a 9/11-type attack through a
tweet that had been removed later. As he said:
The spat
has gotten so heated that a pro-government Twitter account posted a
tweet appearing to threaten Canada with a 9/11-style attack. The
Saudi account shows a plane flying towards Toronto and it's famed CN
Tower with the words "he who interferes with what doesn't
concern him finds what doesn't please him". The tweet also
suggests Canada is "sticking one's nose where it doesn't
belong". The tweet was soon deleted.
Mate
spoke with Saudi analyst Ali Al-Ahmed who claimed that the Twitter
account is actually a Saudi government account. Ahmed also implied
that some of the biggest social media companies and US think tanks
have economic ties with the Saudis. As he said:
This is
not a pro-government account. This is a government account. This is
an account that is run by the royal court. So, Mohammad bin Salman
(MbS) - this is his internet group and they run this account. The
Saudi have one of the largest electronic army or bots on Twitter and
Facebook and other social media. And these armies, by the way, have
been protected, for example, by Twitter. Twitter did not suspend, or
limit these accounts who have been spreading - you name it –
threats, violence, terrorism, hate, bigotry.
So, this
account, Saudi info-graphic a say, is controlled by Saudi employees
of the royal court. And this goes under the so-called Saudi
cyber-authority, which is part of the Department of Media in the
Saudi royal court, which has operations in the United States. They
fund some organizations here, some thing tanks, and they have working
relationship with Twitter, Apple, Facebook and YouTube.
So, this
is not a pro-government, this is a government account and Twitter
knows about it because they gave it and verified the individual
behind it. So, I would ask Twitter, if they really care about their
own rules, to come up out with a statement saying who is the real
owner of that account. I doubt that they will do because they have
been working in fact with the Saudis to limit dissent in the country.
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