That’s me (if you were wondering). The setting is that I take offense to the media and the way they are conducting their business. The larger setting is that I have no overwhelming love for the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. I have no business in Saudi Arabia, I have no relatives, no experience there and I have never been there. The simple setting is that I could have business there, but I do not. I am however drenched in fair play and the media settings are in an abundance of corruption, whoring (for the digital dollar) and smearing for the ‘friends’ they claim to have. Claim is as good as anything, because the political field is forever in flux.
And the media is to be held to account much higher standard than they are now. So as the Guardian gives their new ‘abundance’ of smearing through their emotional settings like “and was the kind of expert – passionate, principled, always glad to hop on the phone – that journalists loved having in their digital Rolodex”, yes smearing the goo to soften the reader and something broke in me. So here goes:
‘Money talks: the deep ties between Twitter and Saudi Arabia’ (at https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/oct/09/twitter-saudi-arabia-deep-ties-elon-musk-prince-mohammed)
Where we see “Ali al-Ahmed didn’t think that Elon Musk was responsible for the decline and fall of Twitter. Musk was another face representing an old regime. And its sins began well before Musk bumbled into Twitter HQ, in October 2022, carrying a porcelain sink. (In an attempt at humor, Musk posted a video of himself arriving at the Twitter offices carrying a sink with the caption “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!”)” The first ‘error’ Elon Musk wasn’t responsible for anything (as I see it) he overpaid for a social media for well over 50% ($44 billion) A friend of mine and myself saw that the accounts were ‘spiked’ and that fake accounts were abundant. My personal view was that he paid over $15B too much for it and that is his right. As well as that Musk wasn’t ‘old’ regime anything. And at present is is ‘valued’ at $52.3 billion, so he made ten billion in just three years, that is not old anything, It is a massive influx of value (I never saw that).
Then Ali Al-Ahmed gives us the one truth that matters ““They care about making money. Twitter and Facebook are not champions or models for human rights. These people are nothing but money-grubbers.” Twitter had banned Ahmed’s Arabic-language Twitter account, which had 36,000” that is social media for you and as I see it LinkedIn is about to be set to that same drive. It is all about the communications that are being drawn to catering (to whom is the question). Then we get the ‘dubious’ part (cannot agree, whether I see it that way or not). “For Saudi authorities, Twitter was an asset in every sense. The billionaire Saudi businessman Prince Alwaleed bin Talal was Twitter’s largest outside shareholder, and the site had become a key tool in the government’s apparatus of surveillance and control.” Is it really? It might be, but that is social media for you. If you share with the world, you share with EVERYONE, not just your ‘core’ people and the Saudi Government might as well take notice (as does the German, French, America and Commonwealth nations). Then we get a ‘tainted’ part. With “Ahmed believed his Twitter account had been compromised. He worried that spies had access to it, which would endanger dissident Saudis with whom he exchanged private messages. This wasn’t an idle concern. One of his contacts was Abdulrahman al-Sadhan, an aid worker who, in 2018, was abducted by Saudi security forces for running a satirical Twitter account that parodied members of the government. Abdulrahman, who was then 37, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.” There is a hidden truth, EVERY Twitter account is compromised. We do it ourselves and whether it is some security forces or hackers, they all try to get information and the Chinese, Israeli and Russians make the Saudi security forces look like little kids in the playground. And the writer knows this. So there.
Then we get the (seemingly) big lie “As the brutal murder of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi demonstrated, the Saudi state pursued vigorous methods of transnational repression, allegedly sending hit squads after enemies abroad.” In the first place. Where is the evidence? What makes a murder brutal? There is no body, as such Jamal Khashoggi is merely missing and the press knows this (apparently he moved to bora bora with a 19 year old mistress) but that is something I am willing to dismiss as have no evidence of this. The second lie is “Saudi state pursued vigorous methods of transnational repression, allegedly sending hit squads after enemies abroad” this might be true, but it requires evidence (that pesky requirement) and I do not see the evidence given by Saad Aljabri as evidence. He silenced a few settings through the CIA to set silent the evidence against him. The truth and all the truth is my motto and he has allegedly over 3,000,000,000 reasons not to be honest. Then we get the ‘meh’ setting. In “Prince Mohammed used his country’s bottomless reserves of oil and capital to flood Silicon Valley, politics, sports leagues and other power centers with cash and influence. Venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and Peter Thiel’s investment vehicle, Founders Fund, were among the most notable recipients of Saudi money, but they were just two among hundreds. In 2016, Uber received an astonishing $3.5bn from Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF). Blackstone’s infrastructure fund got $20bn. By autumn 2018, the Wall Street Journal reported, Saudi Arabia had become “the largest single funding source for US startups”.” So Saudi Arabia is setting wealth to create wealth? Isn’t that the proper use of Business Intelligence? So they had the money and they were starting up companies (to get a return on investment I reckon) and then we get another setting ““They’re surveillance states. They’re police states,” said Nader Hashemi, a professor of Middle East and Islamic politics at Georgetown University. “They want to use the latest technology in order to continue to remain in power and surveil their populations. So they have another interest in trying to sort of be the beneficiaries of hi-tech developments, hoping that that will help them internally with their own political rule.”” Might be seen as direct settings of intelligence and I would say that this is a valid use of technology. The west is run over by Hamas and Gaza sympathizers and we do nothing. Saudi Arabia knows how dangerous that could become and they are making sure that these people do not succeed and I reckon that the UAE is on that setting too. There is something to be said for the Saudi approach when we see the ‘news’ that is spread through social media. As I see it, pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel protests are rampant in the streets of Europe and they are ‘supporting’ one another making life in Europe less and less interesting and the populist agenda is somehow fed through that. Saudi Arabia has no interest in getting involved through that setting.
Then we get the ‘dangerous’ part ““Since late 2017 or January of 2018, Prince Mohammed has exercised control over more Twitter stock than is owned by Twitter’s founder,” according to a civil complaint filed against Twitter and the consulting firm McKinsey by Omar Abdulaziz, a film director and Saudi exile. Abdulaziz said that the consultancy helped finger him as a prominent online dissident, leading to his Twitter account being hacked. (In 2020, Canadian authorities warned Abdulaziz that he was a target of a Saudi kill team.) According to Abdulaziz’s original complaint, “Because of the tremendous wealth of key figures in [the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia], major corporations have enabled, collaborated with, and turned a blind eye to [its] efforts to suppress, torture, falsely imprison, terrorise and murder dissenters both within Saudi Arabia and around the world.” Twitter had given the Saudi government a reach well beyond its borders.” It is dangerous as it assumes several parts. In part as the setting of Omar Abdulaziz, he failed a complaint, how did that end? We do not know. We are given that “finger him as a prominent online dissident, leading to his Twitter account being hacked”, so was this on McKinsey? He was out there getting ‘visibility’ as a film director and some might not like that (for all kinds of reasons) it might have been an Islamophobe. Then we get “In 2020, Canadian authorities warned Abdulaziz that he was a target of a Saudi kill team.” What authorities? I reckon that the CSIS got wind of something and did their job, but where is the evidence? I get that the CSIS gets all kinds of information (Saad Aljabri anyone)? So they did their job (if they were the source). So what was that Saudi Kill team? Overzealous football supporters? And with “suppress, torture, falsely imprison, terrorise and murder dissenters both within Saudi Arabia and around the world.” Twitter had given the Saudi government a reach well beyond its borders” we get another setting of ‘seemingly’ setting the stage. Where evidence doesn’t exist, the media drenches the story in emotion and what we call soft pressures and I have had enough whilst this happens they are pushed around and they want their digital dollars. And this is how the seemingly get it. And in conclusion, Twitter doesn’t give them anything, because some already showed me that others use Twitter (say X) for exactly the same reason and that gives the population of one (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) a much larger pool with Trolls, Russian, China, Commonwealth, America, CIA, NSA, DIA, Democratic corporations and a whole range of alphabet combinations and there are several who would like to take out someone they don’t care about and lay the blame on Saudi Arabia for all the interesting reasons that we might not see.
So this is how I see emotional articles from the Guardian at present. Feel free to disagree because that is how I am. Have a great day.