Saudis' Image Makers: A Troll Army and a Twitter Insider

[TygrBright]

Online attackers who targeted Jamal Khashoggi were part of a broad effort ordered by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and his close advisers to silence Saudi critics.

The House of Sawed is still at it. Apparently they share a playbook with those other guys who use social media trolls and bots to push their agenda and make the US into patsys...

The specialists found the jobs through Twitter itself, responding to ads that said only that an employer sought young men willing to tweet for about 10,000 Saudi riyals a month, equivalent to about $3,000.

The political nature of the work was revealed only after they were interviewed and expressed interest in the job. According to the people The Times interviewed, some of the specialists felt they would have been targeted as possible dissenters themselves if they had turned down the job.

The specialists heard directors speak often of Mr. Qahtani. Labeled by activists and writers as the “troll master,” “Saudi Arabia’s Steve Bannon” and “lord of the flies” — for the bots and online attackers sometimes called “flies” by their victims — Mr. Qahtani had gained influence since the young crown prince consolidated power.

He ran media operations inside the royal court, which involved directing the country’s local media, arranging interviews for foreign journalists with the crown prince, and using his Twitter following of 1.35 million to marshal the kingdom’s online defenders against enemies including Qatar, Iran and Canada, as well as dissident Saudi voices like Mr. Khashoggi’s.

Remind me again... how many of the 9/11 attackers were from Sawed-y Arabia?

disgustedly,
Bright