Thread by @daniaakkad

THREAD: Yesterday, I found an Instagram photo showing Twitter CEO @Jack meeting with Saudi Crown Prince MBS. Might not have noticed it, if not for the timing: June 2016 instagram.com/p/BHF0diFBB1g/

Earlier this week, the US gov't filed a complaint in a District Court in California alleging that two former Twitter employees had used their roles to spy for Saudi Arabia

According to that complaint, Twitter put an engineer on administrative leave after discovering he had been accessing data from user accounts.

That was December 2015.

A separate complaint, filed by lawyers representing @oamaz7 against Twitter & McKinsey & Co, says that during the same month - Dec 2015 - Twitter sent out a notice to several dozens users warning that their accounts 'may have been targeted by state-sponsored actors'

So when I saw the photo of Dorsey & MBS shaking hands six months later, it surprised me. And I wrote Twitter to try to find out more

I asked a list of questions, including how and when Twitter became aware of the spying, if/when Dorsey had been informed & whether he raised any concerns with MBS in that June 2016 meeting

Twitter declined to answer any of my questions and gave me a general statement from a spokesperson

I asked @oamaz7's lawyers what they thought about this. They said they understood that 'a three-lettered US agency' had first tipped Twitter off and said it was 'hard to imagine' Dorsey had not been informed by June 2016

I asked @marcowenjones what he thought about it.
He said: 'The severity of the charge and the need for discussions around security & privacy at a high level would certainly have made it a top item on any agenda'

.@marcowenjones also told me: 'Indeed, if Dorsey was not made aware of the issue, then Twitter’s competence as a tech company should be brought further into question'

So many questions still to be asked. But here's a write up of where we are now: middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive…

cc @karaswisher @sarahleah1 @cooglea