Twitter takes down fake pro-Saudi accounts
Twitter announced Friday that it had suspended a small number of accounts for spreading pro-Saudi messaging disguised as news content amid efforts to battle spam accounts on the platform.
In a lengthy blog post, the company announced the results of investigations into various countries’ efforts to spread information on the platform, including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
The investigation into Saudi-linked accounts resulted in the suspension of Saud al-Qahtani, a former media consultant to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, as well as six other accounts linked to “coordinated efforts to amplify messaging that was beneficial to the Saudi government.”
Al-Qahtani, who also previously served as an adviser to Saudi King Salman, was dismissed last year over claims of his involvement in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, a U.S.-based Washington Post columnist.
“While active, the accounts in this set presented themselves as independent journalistic outlets while tweeting narratives favorable to the Saudi government,” Twitter’s statement read.
The site also claimed that a number of spam accounts linked to Saudi Arabia were suspended, though no data on how many were affected was immediately available.
“We continue to suspend a range of accounts for other types of political spam violations in Saudi Arabia. As ever, we will disclose any attribution we can reliably make to state actors if and when we learn them,” the blog post continued.
The company regularly posts updates on accounts suspended for violating the platform’s terms of service, and in May announced that more than 160,000 accounts were suspended in the second half of 2018 for promoting terrorist content on the platform.
Read more on Twitter’s purge here.
KA-CHING: More than $2 billion has been raised over Facebook for various charitable causes since the platform launched its fundraising tools in 2015, the company said Thursday.
In a blog post, Facebook executives said that the rate of fundraising on the platform was increasing, with the number of fundraisers on the platform doubling since November of last year.
“Thank you to everyone who supported these causes, and so many others. We know that $2 billion is just the start to the amount of impact our community will have,” Facebook wrote in its blog post.
The site’s new birthday fundraiser tool alone saw $1 billion raised, by allowing users to notify those on their friends lists about a charity fundraiser on their birthdays.
“By dedicating their special day to a nonprofit organization, people rally their friends and family to support important causes. From birthdays and Giving Tuesday to anytime throughout the year, over 45 million people have donated to or created a fundraiser on Facebook — which has more than doubled since last November,” the blog post read.
Nancy Frates, a board member of the ALS Association credited with coming up with the viral “Ice Bucket Challenge,” called the announcement a “win-win-win” in an interview with USA Today.
“It’s a win for the donor who can give within the platform. It’s a win for the nonprofit because the amount raised can be quite substantial, and it’s a win for the people being served,” Frates said. “A dollar raised on Facebook is a dollar that can be used in the service because there are no fees associated with it.”
