Marc Owen Jones Profile picture
Aug 3, 2021 12 tweets 6 min read Read on X
🧵 [Thread] 1/ This thread is about some attempts to manipulate the Arabic hashtag "boycott elections". The trend refers to upcoming Shura council elections in Qatar. It's currently the number one trend in Qatar. There is clear manipulation + outside influence. Read on>
2/ First, while the topic of Shura elections has generated much debate, it is clearly going to be an issue of international scrutiny. So at these times looking at social media commentary and manipulation will be key, especially with democratic backsliding in the region #Qatar
3/ It's not a big hashtag. Only around 300 interactions from around 250 unique accounts. However, the most retweeted account is a digital marketing account that literally offers trend promoting services. > noof30304. 100 RTs and 40 likes cost 10 Riyals! This account
4/ This marketing account accounts for 116 RTs and 47 likes on the hashtag, already a large proportion. We should probably assume that those RTs are also from fake accounts 9 (at least initially because real accounts will RT when the tweet become more prominent).
5/ Here's one of the accounts retweeting the marketing accounts > @JimmyRuff77 - Yeah I am pretty sure this Jimmy Ruff is not really following Qatar's Shura elections... Same with Becky Mills....
6/ What's more, the most 'influential' account on the hashtag is EdyCohen an Israeli account who has tweeted disinformation about Qatar and the Muslim Brotherhood before. He is often in lock step with Emirate influencer account. Edy has around 4300000 followers.
7/ Edy is spreading information about women not being able to participate in elections. Not quite clear what he is talking about, since women can run for the Shura council. A lot of retweets from Emirate and Saudi accounts by the looks of it... #Qatar
8/ It's also worth noting some of the tweets aren't actually about Qatar, but Lebanon and Iraq...
9/ A lot of the signal boosting also comes from accounts that are criticising the trend as supposed to supporting it...
9/ Another influential node is an apparently Emirate account called Emarate_Shield who is again accusing the Qatar government of being Muslim Brotherhood terrorists. Incidentally, the Emarate_Shield account was very influential on a hashtag about Tunisia a few days ago...
10/ One of the accounts kuwarimud is again spreading disinformation saying the election is for men only and not women. The account 'royal qatar' replies seems to be saying women aren't suitable for leadership, presumably this is to make Qataris look more misogynistic?
11/ Anyway that's enough for now. While there are many genuine discussions, including praise and criticism of the upcoming elections, this is not one. This trend is clearly misleading, mostly dominated by disinformation, paid spambots, non-Qataris (UAE/Saudi) and an Israeli

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Marc Owen Jones

Marc Owen Jones Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @marcowenjones

Oct 15
🧵1/🚨AI is learning Israel's disinformation.

On 13/08, a fake quote attributed to Hamas official Khalil al-Hayya circulated on X:

“The countdown to the next massacre has begun. Next time we will slaughter all the Jews"

It was debunked, but Gemini later stated it as fact > Image
2/ Firstly, this super sus account was the first I could find spreading the rumour on X (7.49 am UK time 13/08). @RonanMark572778 - whoever this 'pilot and physician' is has sent >113k tweets since July 2023. He also has a verified account (rememeber verification = algo boost). Image
3/ The narrative then was picked up on X by other accounts and influencers, changing ever so slightly. Accounts like @FleurHassanN @thevoicetruth1 (lol) got a lot of engagement and 'legitimised' the rumour.

NOTE: Not one of these accounts is providing a source to the quote. Image
Read 15 tweets
Oct 6
🧵🚨1/ This verified X account posing as an American doctor has been spreading pro-Israel propaganda, justifying the killing of journalists, and posting predominantly anti–Sudanese Armed Forces content. The account is fake.>
#disinformation #gazagenocide #Sudan Image
2/ The first clear red flags are the tweets versus creation date ratio.

The account was created in 2009, but has only tweeted 1090 times, and the first of those was on April 2025. This means the account has been appropriated/hacked/bought and its old tweets scrubbed. Image
3/ I located the unique user id of the account. I ran this user id via the botometer archive of bots and it tells me that in February 2023 the account was called 'sitaramks', not 'nate_jone' Image
Read 15 tweets
Oct 6
1/ Propaganda botnet alert! About 50 accounts, tweeting in English & Arabic, have pushed out thousands of posts about #Sudan’s war over the past few months. Almost all certainly using genAI, all pushing a pro-UAE, anti-SAF & anti Muslim (Brotherhood) narrative. #disinformation Image
2/ They all follow the same script:

> Blame Burhan, the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Muslim Brotherhood for Sudan’s suffering.
> Praise the UAE for “stability” and “humanitarian aid.”
> Wrap it all in moral language about peace, tolerance, and unity. Image
3/ Much of the phrasing is synthetic: with odd, weird idioms, and em dashes. Classic traces of Chat GPT or another LLM agent. The slogans repeat across accounts:

e.g. “Brotherhood’s Butler”, “Brotherhood in Uniform”, “Ministry of Brotherhood Enforcement”, "Sudan bleeds" Image
Read 14 tweets
May 22
🤖 1/ Ok this is pretty wild. I saw some sus pro-Israel astroturfing activity on a BBCNews Facebook post about aid arriving in Gaza. Lots of Hasbara comments like "Hamas will take the aid". The following 2 identical posts were side by side so I looked into it. #disinformation Image
2/ Specifically I looked at Dean O' Connor. Firstly up, there were two almost identical Dean O'connor pages, both created on consecutive days last week (15 + 16 May). The one that posted is the one on the right. Image
Image
Image
3/ When I reverse image searched the picture I was inundated with dozens of pages from forums about romance scams asking about people using this same picture. A lot of people scammed out of thousands. Someone even asked on Quora about O'Connor! Image
Read 7 tweets
May 15
Macron Cocaine Thread/ - The first 10 hours of the @EmmanuelMacron @Keir_Starmer @ZelenskyyUa Cocaine disinformation.

Seemed to be promoted initially by a few dubious accounts like @Veritiste @SitgesFranck @99percentyouth @SilentlySirs @goddeketal

#disinformation Image
2/ Before being boosted by the right-wing ecosystem and conspiracy accounts e.g. @DineshDSouza @RealAlexJones @CollinRugg. No serious journalists reported this story (because it's absurd). Nonetheless, those tweeting in the first 10 hours generated over 103 million views on X! Image
3/ The boosting of the info by Putin's envoy Kirill Dmitriev was via Alex Jones, who as the above timeline shows - wasn't the first to put it out on X - but the most widely viewed. Image
Read 4 tweets
Apr 29
🚨1/ Fake News Alert: A number of accounts are spreading false information that a church in #Wales was burned down by two Pakistan migrants/muslims. There are other narratives, but this is the dominant one. It is false but has obtained millions of views. some data> #disinfo Image
2/ It is true that a church did burn down. It was set alight by two local teenagers. The South Wales police have tweeted that other rumours circulating are false - they are of course talking about the false info about the ethnicity of the attackers (right). Image
Image
3/ The most shared claim comes from 'RadioEuropes'. This is a 'Dysinfluencer' account - an account that repeatedly spreads false and malicious information - in this case xenophobic and anti-Muslim content. You can see its false tweet garnered over 3.6 million views Image
Read 12 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us!

:(