Saudi Arabia Disinformation Profile

Khashoggi murder:

False stories circulated following the journalist's murder, suggesting MBS had been removed by King Salman by decree ^[1]. This prompted a "fierce information war" fought by bots and trolls over the journalist's death. Saudi actors used a bot network that attempted to discredit Al Jazeera with the hashtag "unfollow enemies of the nation" in Arabic after the attack. Additionally bots were deployed to show support for the Saudi crown prince "we all have trust in Mohammed Bin Salman" in Arabic, which became one of the global top trends.^[2]

August 2019:

Facebook took down 350 accounts and pages said to be linked to Saudi Arabia. Accounts were alluded to have promoted pro-Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman content as well as target opponents of the Kingdom: Amnesty International, Al Jazeera and Iran, among others ^[3].

20th December 2019:

Twitter removed more than 88,000 accounts engaged in coordinated inauthentic behaviour with relations to Saudi Arabia ^[4]. The tweets were mainly in Arabic but a small percentage of the content was targeted at a Western audience ^[5].

This bot network was highly active in spreading conspiracy theories about Turkish government involvement in the Khashoggi murder ^[6].

[1] ttps://www.reuters.com/article/us-saudi-khashoggi-disinformation/fake-news-network-vs-bots-the-online-war-around-khashoggi-killing-idUSKCN1N63QF

[2] ttps://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-45901584

[3] ttps://www.npr.org/2019/08/10/750086287/inside-saudi-arabias-disinformation-campaign?t=1615800687369

[4] ttps://blog.twitter.com/en_us/topics/company/2019/new-disclosures-to-our-archive-of-state-backed-information-operations.html

[5] ttps://www.businessinsider.com/twitter-removed-accounts-saudi-arabia-disinformation-campaign-2019-12?international=true&r=US&IR=T

[6] ttps://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/despite-twitter-culls-riyadhs-disinformation-network-still-going-strong

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