[Thread] 1/ A friend informed of the hashtag "#قطر ضد شعب العراق" - which translates as "Qatar is against the people of Iraq". It seems clear after analysis that the hashtag is being promoted by a anti-Qatar/Iran/Turkey nexus and pro-UAE troll and/or sock-puppet farm. Read on
2/ If you search for the hashtag, you will notice the top tweets on the Arabic hashtag, and are in English. Here is a sample of a few of them. The language is very similar, both stylistically and in terms of word use, almost as if it's the same person writing the content. 
3/ Almost all of these accounts position themselves as being in Iraq, with that being their user reported location. Also most have some Iraqi flag photograph as their banner picture. While that could be interpreted generously as normal during revolutionary times, it gets weird...
4/ Sidenote: Also what's with the use of Snapchat filters these days - makes everyone look the same... Meet Lamees and Sajda!
5/ Anyway that's not what's weird. I downloaded the trend, which wasn't huge, around 412 tweets from around 280 accounts. The data I usual use to find bots was not particularly helpful in this case, so I began to scroll the timelines of the accounts in question...
6/ I started to notice that all of the suspicious accounts on the hashtag were retweeting the same bizarre things, mostly notably an anti @AlJazeera account, called @Jazira_is_liar (very subtle). Please enjoy the logo, complete with a snake and devil face!
@AlJazeera @Jazira_is_liar 7/ Even more bizarrely, they were all retweeting a post from the @ICAUAE - which is a verified Twitter account for the Federal Authority for Identity and Citizenship authorities in the UAE. ica.gov.ae/en/home.aspx There's more...
@AlJazeera @Jazira_is_liar @ICAUAE 8/ I also noticed many of the suspicious accounts were tweeting at the @ICAUAE Twitter account, using the hashtag #GoldenLifeUAE . Strange, when all these Iraqi activists weren't tweeting about the revolution, they were praising the identity and citizenship services of the UAE...
@AlJazeera @Jazira_is_liar @ICAUAE 9/ So I searched the hashtag "Golden Life UAE" and found that virtually all of the accounts tweeting on the "Qatar is against the Iraqi people" hashtag were also tweeting generic messages of praise at the UAE Federal Authority on Identity and Citizenship. See below >
@AlJazeera @Jazira_is_liar @ICAUAE 10/ Indeed there were around 465 accounts using the Golden Life hashtag, and replying to the ICAUAE account. Assuming those replying to that particular tweet are mostly trolls or sock puppet accounts, we can say that this network is quite large between 400-500.
@AlJazeera @Jazira_is_liar @ICAUAE 11/ Of course it could be bigger, depending on whether the accounts all tweet on exactly the same topic, or if they are split into clusters. Anyway, I went back into the tweets of a few random accounts, and saw what else they tweeted about. One thread is the recent dodgy news
12/ story that Qatar knew about the attacks on Saudi Aramco before they happened - and were somehow complicit. This story came from an anonymous and suspicious 'Western intelligence report' given to Fox News. Safe to say, it's certainly propaganda. They are also amplifying the
13/ recent story about a Qatari diplomat in Britain sexually harassing a former employee. Also when they are not boosting negative stories about Qatar, Turkey and Iran, they are promoting their love for Egypt's President Sisi. Also they are dog piling anyone that criticises him
14/ So why does this pro-Sissi, pro-UAE troll, pro-Iraq revolution, pro-Lebanon revolution network also praise the UAE's identity and citizenship service? Good question. Short answer, don't know, but I'd wager that this troll/ sockpuppet network is run by either a firm that
15/ is explicitly focused on strategic communication reflecting UAE foreign policy, or otherwise a private firm contracted by a PR firm or entity to promote specific political messages/advertise government services. However, given its clear political stance, there's a good chance
16/ whichever organization behind it is somehow linked to the UAE, or one of the quartet countries. So there you have it, another, potentially UAE-based large scale Twitter network promoting propaganda in the Middle East, in both English and Arabic. Report away!
17/ Update: @egysun4014 mentioned that "Golden Life UAE" is also trending in Egypt. It's a good question. It's not clear why, it's not currently trending in UAE, and locations of those tweeting aren't dominated by Egyptians...Could it be IP address? hmmm 🤔
18/ interesting update. As of today, many of the accounts have been suspended
