UAE’s Role in AI-Driven Disinformation Campaign Targeting European Muslims and Qatar
A suspicious AI-driven social media campaign has reached over 41 million people on Facebook, targeting Muslims in the West by spreading defamatory and inciteful content. The campaign accuses Qatar of a “conspiracy to Islamize Europe,” using anti-Muslim propaganda to discredit Qatar.
Operating across various digital platforms, the campaign aims to tarnish the image of Muslims in Europe, America, and Canada, portraying them as extremist Islamists hostile to the West. Experts in digital disinformation suspect the UAE’s involvement, given its history of similar actions and support for the far-right in France’s elections.
The Conspiracy Unveiled
On July 7, 2024, a study by researchers Marc Owen Jones and Sohan Dsouza exposed alarming tactics by American and European groups targeting Muslims in Europe and Qatar.
The study, titled The Qatar Plot, uncovered new information about one of the largest influence operations on social media aimed at tarnishing the image of Muslims in Western countries. It also targets Qatar for its role in trying to end the Israeli war on Gaza and supporting some Muslim activities in the West.
The study revealed that this campaign operates with extraordinary intensity across social media platforms, using AI programs to disseminate misleading, anti-foreigner, anti-Muslim, and anti-Qatar information through a vast network.
The content of this network, aimed at manipulating millions of social media users, reached at least 41 million people on Facebook alone.
Interestingly, an account falsely claimed that a petition on Change.org targeted the mother of the Emir of Qatar, supposedly started by “John Anderson” of the fictitious organization “Citizens of Human Lives.” Despite this, American evangelical Johnnie Moore, a pro-Israel businessman, promoted the petition, asking a demonstrator to act as if the organization existed. The study found that a large-scale Facebook operation, involving thousands of pages, circulated over 900 anti-Qatar ads, many calling for Qatar’s political isolation and accusing it of promoting terrorism and Muslim migration to Europe.
The campaign extended to platforms like X, TikTok, YouTube, and Wikimedia. In response to Qatari complaints, Meta found the anti-Qatar efforts originated from Vietnam, known for trading hacked Facebook accounts to post ads. Researchers clarified that Vietnam is a facilitator, not the source. An “unknown entity,” likely the UAE, funded these misleading ads from Vietnam, as confirmed by AFP.
Meta’s Margarita Franklin stated the network was removed for being “fake.” Despite this, the ads targeting Muslims and Qatar reached at least 41 million people and cost $270,000, per researchers Mark Owen Jones and Suhan Dsouza, using Facebook’s ad library data.
Researchers and AFP found a large network, including a Vietnamese hacker, an advertising agency, and evangelical Christian clergy in the U.S., all working to obscure the operation’s true masterminds. Suhan Dsouza noted the campaigns aimed to portray relationships with Qatar as harmful.
Previously, the New York Times reported on December 19, 2019, that the UAE financed campaigns in London after the Qatar blockade to strip Qatar of the 2022 World Cup hosting. The Intercept and NBC News confirmed UAE’s financial war against Qatar and negative campaigns using Cambridge Analytica during the blockade, linking Qatar to terrorism.
