A group of prominent Arab activists, artists and academics say that Twitter and Facebook are no longer safe for them, and called on social media companies to do more to protect them.
The group, which includes 40 people, says in an open letter published on Tuesday that the policies of social media companies "or lack of them" had real consequences for the lives of Arab voices.
The letter explained that the use of the two platforms led to the arrest, enforced disappearance and sometimes extrajudicial killing of innocent civilians in the Arab world, such as Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Signatories to the Saudi academic thesis include Madawi al-Rasheed, Saudi director Safaa al-Ahmad and Egyptian human rights defender Mohamed Sultan and others.
Invest in tyranny
The message added that social media users no longer trust that social media companies are protecting their personal data after they saw an increase in investment from authoritarian regimes.
The signatories say they intend to protect social media users in the Arab world, provide legal support to victims of data breach, and provide technical assistance to protect online privacy.
The letter comes weeks after two former Twitter employees at a California state court were charged with spying for Riyadh and sharing user data with Saudi officials.
According to Middle East Eye, one of the two employees reached 6,000 accounts over seven months, before Twitter decided to grant him administrative leave, and a few months later, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey met Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to discuss investment in Technology and how to train Saudis.
Concerns about the disappeared
Saudi activists recently told Middle East Eye that they feared information, including Internet Protocol (IP) addresses, could be used to target and arrest activists who have disappeared.
However, the signatories say they focus not only on Twitter, Saudi espionage or privacy protection, but have raised concerns about other ways they say are used to harm their conversations on social media platforms.
They said accounts for Arab anti-tyrannical activists had been closed or suspended, and trademarks and trends were manipulated through algorithms to "silence dissenting voices."
The letter called on social media companies to strengthen and fulfill their legal and ethical obligations to protect user data and the lives of their users, and to re-evaluate and strengthen their policies.