[Thread] 1/ Three days ago Said Al Jabri, a former Saudi politician now living in exile in Canada, gave an interview to @60Minutes where he reiterated that the Saudi state had attempted to assassinate him while in Canada. Soon after, the 'interview with Said Al Jabri trended'
2/ I will highlight some interesting characteristics about the network. Broadly speaking, there are two large communities. On the left, those critical of Saudi Crown Prince MBS, and those on the right, those supportive of him. As you can see, not a great deal of between
3/ group communication (polarisation). There are also areas of artificial amplification impacting the pro MBS community. In this case, fake RT communities boosting tweets of support for MBS. You can see the close up of these communities below. Some are more obvious than others.
4/ This network, represents around 100 sockpuppet accounts boosting the tweet on the right praising MBS.
5/ This one is a little more of a spam network, still amplifying the hashtag. The account - @jimotheus1 (aka Reem ) sells retweet services. Most of the sockpuppets boosting her appear to have been accounts with Western names - e.g. milena_ibelice or bbsouthwick
6/ This sockpuppet network is a little more embedded in the main conversation, but is still retweeting a tweet critical of Said Al Jabri. It contains likely a few dozen accounts.
7/ I'd estimate about two hundred sock puppets attempting to dilute criticism of MBS. This does not include accounts which are likely paid trolls.
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