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Authoritarian Nations Are Turning the Internet Into a Weapon
From Twitter’s spies to complete shutdowns, repressive regimes are using A.I. and VPN fingerprinting to silence their critics
When two former Twitter employees were charged with spying on behalf of Saudi Arabia in November 2019, the case spotlighted the new and inventive ways oppressive governments are using technology to stifle dissent. According to the U.S. Justice Department, the two men — a U.S. citizen and a Saudi citizen — passed private information about more than 6,000 Twitter users, including regime critics, to a Saudi official in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars and a designer watch.
For most people, the news sparked concerns that companies like Twitter are failing to keep user information secure. But for activists operating in or against repressive regimes, the privacy breach sparked fears that their Twitter data could be life-threatening in the wrong government’s hands. According to court documents, one alleged spy had access to recent IP information — which details a user’s location — despite having “no legitimate business purpose for accessing user accounts.”
Twitter says it has since changed its rules and now “restrict[s] access to sensitive account information to a limited group…
