[Thread] 1/ Title: Did the Saudi troll army fake a tweet by @hamadjjalthani ? Let's see. First, context: Yesterday, an disinformation operation began claiming there had been a coup attempt in Qatar. Now debunked videos of gunshots and explosions were circulated...
2/ Bizarrely,when the coup story was widely debunked, trolls kept trying to insist it had happened. They then shared this tweet by Hamad bin Jassim, Qatar's former PM, insisting that the tweet meant that their had been a coup d'etat, and that HBJ deleted it quickly (suspiciously) 
3/ The tweet is fairly innocuous. It essentially says "Even if there was a coup as the flies from the blockading countries say, this is an internal matter, maybe myself and Tamim dont agree on some internal matters, sometimes he gets his way, sometimes I do, at the end of the day
4/ we are one family, from the smallest individual to the largest, and rule remains in the hand of who deserves it". The tweet has been used by trolls to subtly suggest there was a coup attempt It is quite opaque, which possibly reflects the desire to seem plausible.
5/ The reasons it might be fake: 1) There appears to be no trace of the tweet, even though it was screenshotted as having 169 replies, 1072 retweets, and 917 likes. Usually that kind of tweet will leave a trace. There is nothing in google's cache. Not surprising if it had been
6/ deleted quickly. However, given that there were 169 replies according to the screenshot above, you'd expect to see replies to HBJ's account on Twitter. When a reply to a tweet is deleted, it still looks like this. A message saying "The Tweet is unavailable appears". However,
7/ let's assume HBJ's tweet was sent at 9.33pm. That's what it says in the screenshot. And let's assume it's Saudi time, since most of the activity comes from Saudi. Let's also assume the tweet was deleted the latest by 9.48 pm. How can we assume that? Well, the first Saudi
8/ account to accuse HBJ of deleting that tweet was sent at 9.48pm (see picture). He asks, 'why did you delete your tweet'. Furthermore, between 9.33pm and 9.48pm, when the screenshot said there had been 169 replies, there were only five. None of these five screenshots direct
9/ us to a screen you'd associate with a deleted tweet. Below I made a short screen grab video showing you what happens when you click on all the tweet sent between the alleged time HBJ sent it, and the first indication it was deleted. None show a reply to a deleted tweet, let
10/ 169 tweets. Furthermore, most of the tweets are replies to a tweet HBJ sent back on April 23, the last time he tweet. Two of the tweets simply go to his handle. Thus it would seem that there is no evidence to show that HBJ ever sent this tweet. Given the fact this campaign
11/ was premised on doctored videos and is itself, fake, it should not be surprising that a fake tweet would be created. It also fits the modus operandi of inconclusive and vague videos - as if the vagueness add plausibility to the whole affair (it also frustrates debunking it)
12/ It would be easy to manipulate a tweet in any basic photo editing software, you can even do it through Chrome, as @Saoud_AlEshaq_ mentioned. Watch the video below, it took me less than a minute to fake a tweet screenshot...I guess the main point is, it's so easy to fake
13/ Quick note, there are other screenshots showing high interactions (in Arabic). So I am not sure how many people were engaged in this, but it simply fuels speculation that the tweet was fabricated if we cannot see replies.
