[Thread]1/ The WTO report released today found that Saudi has failed to stop and permitted a commercial-level piracy operation of the BeIN sports channel. Already trending in Saudi is the patently false hashtag, "WTO rejects Qatari complaints". Here is a breakdown of the hashtag
2/ As of 8pm, I've analysed around 6571 interactions (tweets, RTs, replies etc) from around 4000 unique Twitter accounts. The usual suspects are some of the most widely retweeted, including the verified accounts: @monther72@SalmanAldosary@70sul@amjadt25@alekhbariyatv
3/ Interestingly, spreading this patently misleading content is @skynewsarabia presenter @a_albander . Also there is @SaudiNews50 - an account linked to SMAAT, a Saudi social media company, who in December 2019 had 88000 accounts removed by Twitter for platform manipulation.
4/ Interestingly, some of these lot these accounts were very active in the harassment of @ghadaoueiss and @OlaAlfares , as well as the recent disinformation campaigns about a fake coup in Qatar. For want of a better word, many appear to be professional liars #كذابي_محترفين
5/ You may see this being circulated. While the letter head has WTO branding, it is actually a statement from the Saudi Perm Mission to the WTO (as said in header). It's basically the Saudis ignoring the ruling to try and spin it as positive Thanks @BarryJIngham1 for sharing
6/ I dare say this will certainly have implications for #NUFCTakeover, but the focus of the WTO case was highlighting Saudi's behaviour regarding piracy of BeIN content.
7 Updated graph of those most retweeted on the "WTO refused Qatar complaints" disinformation hashtag. Mostly Saudi and Emirati accounts. There's around 16k tweets here.
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🧵1/ Thread on the Islamophobic and antisemitic disinformation about the #SydneyAttack . I downloaded X posts that wrongly stated that the attacker, Joel Cauchi, was either a Muslim or Jewish terrorist
2/ The size of the network was at least 140,000 posts (from X). This time series graph shows that initially, most of the disinformation (red bars) accused the attacker of being a Muslim or Islamist. At about 1700 UTC we see more and more disinfo about the attacker
3/ being Jewish (orange bars). This temporal analysis reflects the fact that there is a notable tendency when it comes to such attacks in Western countries to accuse, without evidence, the perpetrator of being Muslim. To accuse the attacker of being Jewish is less common
🧵1/ Just want to point out a few disturbing elements regarding misinformation in this article - "What's I've Heard From Gaza" published in the @TheAtlantic . I will focus on two specific references that are quite crucial in framing a broader argument about Hamas's actions #Gaza
2/ The article asserts with no equivocation that Hamas killed fleeing civilians on the Al Rashid coastal road in Nov 23. Not only is there no evidence for this, but the link is to an article in the Jerusalem Post, that relies on a tweet from known disinfluencer, @amjadt25
3/ Even if one wasn't to take an Occam's razor approach (i.e. it was probably the IDF since they have killed > 33000 people), then it would make sense to at least report this ambiguously. Reuters, for example, covered the strike, but did not even mention it could have been Hamas
🧵It is increasingly clear that ISGAP are operating in a capacity that has nothing to do with antisemitism, but rather malicious disinformation and a war on education. Their latest report is akin to saying ppl in Qatar shouldn't study *anything*, anywhere, lest they nuke us all
2) The highlight is perhaps how they use the third party aggregate edurank to "prove" that @tamuq and @QatarUniversity have "nuclear engineering programs". I don't even think a first year uni student would be this stupid. Neither uni has a nuclear engineering program, but I love
3) the idea that somehow the cunning foxes at Edurank managed to be party to this information that has been hidden from the public. The "report" then documents research projects at TAMUQ that could be "dual use". Below are some favourites. I kid you not, studying "sensors" is
🧵Although there is more pressure on right-wing and pro-Israel lobbies, most of the reporting on Texas A&M's recent decision to close its Qatar campus in four years cites a report by ISGAP - a pro -Israel think tank, which launched a disinformation campaign about nuclear secrets
It goes back to this press release on 4th Jan 2024, when ISGAP claimed absurdly that Qatar could exert control over nuclear weapons research. Make no mistake, it's a disinformation campaign. It is also evident that the only people who took it 'seriously' were right wing
think tank, or Israeli media - e.g. @i24NEWS_EN @Jerusalem_Post . The fact some of these articles were written by FDD-affiliated 'journalists' (& by that I mean people with a record of harassing people who aren't pro-Israel) simply highlights the fact they are not credible
🧵🚨Discovered hundreds of sock puppets promoting Israeli propaganda on X, Threads, FB & Insta. It also includes 'fake' websites. Recently, it has been spreading anti-UNRWA #disinformation, & trying to undermine solidarity between Palestinians & Black people. #Gaza
Analysis 👉
2/ A few people noticed that influential accounts writing about Gaza were getting replies with people linking a @WSJ article about an Israeli 'intelligence' report claiming 10% of UNRWA staff have links to Hamas. One of the authors of the WSJ was a former IDF soldier.
3/ You may have noticed that the wording of the tweets was very similar. All of them focused on the '10%' figure. All of them uncritically embraced the 10% figure of UNRWA employees being 'linked' to Hamas.
🧵1/ Analysis of why Israel's UNRWA 'dossier' smearing UNRWA is misleading propaganda.
Indeed, Israel's own statistics actually show that the alleged Hamas presence in UNRWA is significantly LOWER than elsewhere in #Gaza.
Read on for more >
2/ A number of outlets, including Reuters, Sky News, CNN and Forbes (to name but a few) have run stories about an intelligence dossier provided by Israel (solid source!) attempting to smear UNRWA. @EylonALevy even called UNRWA a 'front' for Hamas'
3/ First the claims.
Claim one: 190 UNRWA employees in Gaza are 'hardened militants'. The WSJ reported that the dossier noted that 23% of UNRWA male employees had ties to Hamas (whatever that means), a higher percentage than 15% for adult males in Gaza.