Ex twitter manager spied for Saudi Arabia

Court in California sentenced Ahmad Abouammo, a former twitter employee to three and half years in jail for spying for Soudi Arabia.

Ahmad Abouammo and two others, Ali Alzabarah, and Ahmed Almutairi were charged by Indictment on November 19, 2019 for acting as agents of the government of Saudi Arabia without notification to the Attorney General as required by law.  

Abouammo and Alzabarah, while employees at Twitter, accessed without authorization and provided to officials of the government of Saudi Arabia nonpublic information about Twitter users that were of interest to the government of Saudi Arabia, including dissidents and critics of the government. He was also charged with obstruction of justice for providing false documents to the Federal Bureau of Investigation about his payments from an official of the government of Saudi Arabia.

Abouammo was incharge of the relationship between twitter and the Middle east and their high profile celebrity clients.  That gave him lots of access to the inside information. Even though he left twitter in 2015, he had remained in contact with other employees and asked for verifications for some other Saudi individuals. 

Twitter on Monday night abruptly dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the latest sign that Elon Musk is unravelling years of work and institutions created to make the social network safer and more civil.

Plenty of civil rights leaders, academics and advocates from around the world had volunteered their time for years to help improve safety on the platform.