Thread by @marcowenjones

[Thread] 1/ Apparently on Friday, the Twitter account of Kjetil Jansrud, a famous Norwegian skiier, was hacked. Bizarrely, the account was hacked and taken over by one Reem bint Waleed. The profile image is of Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal. Ironically, Al-Waleed was reportedly

2/ the second largest individual shareholder in Twitter (see link). The account of @Kjansrud has now been restored. However, during its brief tenure, the account was nationalist in tone, and celebrated Saudi and its leadership. bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/artic…

@Kjansrud 3/ As you can see from the below tweet, the account calls to protect Saudi from its enemies. What is perhaps more bizarre, is that the biography of the account is that of Reema bint al Bandar, the relatively new Saudi Ambassador the USA....However, the name is different.

@Kjansrud 4/ Just as a reminder, this has happened numerous times before. Saudi nationalist entities have hacked other verified accounts before, as I document here > alaraby.co.uk/english/indept…

@Kjansrud 5/ But why would someone think it is smart to adopt the verified account of a well-known Norwegian skiier is bizzare? Surely they'll know it will be found out - clearly that is not important. As I mentioned in the previous article, they have gotten away with it before... #Saudi

@Kjansrud 6/ Remember, the same thing happened to weatherman Davide Schwartz. His account, although stripped now of most info, is still verified, and still bears his handle. It was also hijacked by Saudi accounts... twitter.com/twcdaveschwartz

@Kjansrud 7/ So there you have it, Norwegian skiier @Kjansrud was hacked by a Saudi nationalist account claiming to be the Saudi ambassador to the US with a profile image of the guy who was also one of Twitter's largest shareholders. If that's not peak Twitter, I don't know what is!

@Kjansrud 8/ Final note, appreciate that @Kjansrud has taken this with good humour - possibly misdirected. He now goes by 'Alpine Skier and sheik fan'.