Records shed light on online harassment of Jamal Khashoggi before his killing

A few months before he was killed, dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi witnessed an ominous change in the kind of attention he was getting from his estranged homeland.

The usual critiques of his essays on Arabic social media became harsh and personal, and occasionally threatening. Influential Saudis reviled him on Twitter as an “extremist,” a “criminal” and a “donkey,” attacks that were instantly repeated and amplified by scores of other Twitter accounts, some of them linked to Saudi officials.