By Abdurahman Bawazir

Okaz/Saudi Gazette

JEDDAH — Twitter tightened the noose on Qatari accounts, closing thousands of automated accounts, believed to be “web robots.”

In the meantime, the Qatari accounts stepped up their criticism of Twitter after the platform closed around 8,000 Qatari accounts, according to unofficial sources.

It was evident that all these accounts are operating within electronic committees organized by the Azmi cells, which are purportedly managing the Qatari propaganda.

Okaz monitored for nearly 24 hours on Sunday the accounts, carrying Qatari names, calling to boycott Twitter as a pressure card on one of the most famous social networking sites.

This is an extension of the paranoia that is evident in the policy of the tiny Gulf emirate since the coup staged by Hamad Bin Khalifa against his father in the summer of 1995.

But it seems that the automated accounts launched by Azmi cells are not easy to be monitored on Twitter, for which there are more than 319 million active monthly users in the world.

Speaking to Okaz/Saudi Gazette, Abdullah Ali, a technical expert, attributed the closure of a large number of Qatari phantom accounts to the Twitter campaign to eliminate targeted campaigns that usually use Internet bots. He noted that the closure of a large number of these accounts by Twitter was a painful blow to the Azmi cells.

A Qatari citizen admitted that Twitter has closed down three of his accounts that he had managed to use to attack Emiratis, while another Qatari refused to take part in the Twitter boycott campaign, saying that “Twitter closed only the abusive accounts that are managed in the dark rooms of the Qatar security apparatus.”

The Twitter accounts associated with Azmi cells are constantly on the rise at a time when tens of thousands of ‘guided’ accounts are diverting their arrows towards Saudi Arabia.

Azmi cells take the strategy of proliferation and dumping of hashtags in an attempt to guide public opinion, and repeat messages and ideas to be delivered through thousands of accounts in different ways and that are often identical.

The phase of obsession with the e-committees, known as the Azmi cells, which are run from the vaults of the Qatari security authorities, has come to accuse Twitter of complimenting the Quartet states combating terror, because it has an office in Dubai!

“The national accounts that defend the homeland have been shut down by the administration of Twitter,” said a fictitious Qatari account, named after a woman, referring to “Azmi cells.”

Despite the launch of a hashtag campaign #Boycott Twitter Sunday 26 by the Azmi cells, it is very rare to see Qataris taking part in the campaign by using their original names and IDs. Instead, they use the hashtag with the pseudonyms of newly joined Twitteratis along with carrying the image of Tamim Bin Hamad or Hamad Bin Khalifa or the Qatari flag.