THREAD: This is harrowing. Saudi Arabia wanted the names of 6000 anonymous Arab Spring dissidents from Twitter. At first, MBS tried to get their names using EDRs - requests under emergency circumstances. When that proved cumbersome, KSA basically bought Twitter. 1/
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They did so by threatening to pull twitter out of their market (biggest in the Middle East) and by offering to invest in heavily in Twitter. They also positioned two spies inside Twitter who helped funnel the personal information on dissidents out of Twitter to KSA. 2/