Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi activist and close friend of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi, wrote in an op-ed that Twitter is "crucial" for Saudi freedom.
Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi activist and close friend of murdered Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, said that Twitter is a vital tool for dissidents like him, despite the risk of reprisal for openly expressing their views.
But the project never came to fruition. In June 2018, Saudi agents targeted Abdulaziz's phone with spyware, which informed them of his plans to challenge Saudi propaganda.Abdulaziz has likely been on the radar of Saudi state monitors for some time. "In the fight against the online campaigns targeting Saudi citizens, I had a powerful ally and friend in Jamal Khashoggi, who recognized the power of Twitter to shape public opinion in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world," Abdulaziz wrote.
Abdulaziz said that while he and Khashoggi were working to create their own team of pro-democracy keyboard warriors, he began to receive threats from Saudi agents unhappy with the project. Several of his friends and family in Saudi Arabia were harassed and imprisoned.
He says more than 30 influencers spoke with him of being blackmailed by the Saudi government, and more than 100 Twitter influencers were arrested in September 2017."Jamal was murdered because he was willing to fight trolls and propaganda with truth and ideas," Abdulaziz wrote."It's sad to see that Twitter may be one of the factors behind Jamal's brutal murder ... because we had so much hope on the platform.
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