Saudi Arabia-Twitter anti-terror partnership grows

Saudi Arabia requested Twitter to disclose the identity of 93 users, suspected of having terror links.

According to the transparency report issued by the social networking website for the first half of 2015, the Kingdom received information about 65 of them.

The Kingdom did not request the deletion of any account, the report said.

In the Arab world, Kuwait requested for information about seven users, the UAE two, Lebanon one, while Egypt, Qatar and Oman none.

According to observers, the high number of such requests from governments demonstrates the growing (ab)use of social networking sites by terrorist groups.

On Twitter alone, more than 40,000 accounts allegedly belong to users who either support or are involved with the Islamic State (IS).

Mark Wallace, a former US ambassador to the UN and head of anti-extremism affairs in Europe, revealed the presence of an integrated project aimed at curbing online recruitment operations led by IS.

Meanwhile, The Times newspaper has alleged that Twitter is not serious in the fight against terrorism, and that it is selective in responding to requests for information.

A recent report claimed the site has been more helpful to Saudi Arabia than the UK in fighting terror.

UK security agencies requested the site to disclose the identity of about 299 suspected users, but received information only about 52 percent of the users.

Twitter responded to 80 percent of requests from US security agencies. With 2,436 requests, the US topped the list.

Source: Arab News