



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.



