Investigation: Saudi-Emirati manipulation of tweets in support of the Tunisian coup
An investigation revealed a Saudi-Emirati manipulation of Twitter tweets to support the coup of Tunisian President Qais Saied against the government, parliament and the country’s public prosecutor.
In his investigation, the British academic and expert Marc Owen Jones pointed out that accounts are tweeted from mainly Saudi Arabia and the UAE and Egypt to support the coup in Tunisia.
He referred to an electronic campaign to export the hashtag Tunisia Revolts Against the Brotherhood.
Jones checked for widespread manipulation after analyzing 12,000 tweets from 6,800 accounts.
The British expert in digital tyranny confirmed the seriousness of the campaign, pointing out the presence of fake accounts that managed to achieve widespread, using entertaining videos, with the addition of the hashtag.
Jones concluded that the trend Tunisia Revolts Against the Brotherhood is propaganda led by Saudi and Emirati trolls and promoted by people in the two Gulf countries and Egypt.
[Thread] 1/ This is a thread on Twitter manipulation around #Tunisia, where the current President is accused of instigating a coup. One Arabic trend translates as "Tunisians revolt against the Brotherhood". I analysed around 12000 tweets from 6800 unique accounts #disinformation pic.twitter.com/BXEEL9R3rL
— Marc Owen Jones (@marcowenjones) July 26, 2021
During the past two days, Saudi newspapers and writers expressed their support for Tunisian President Kais Saied to isolate the government and freeze parliament, which was considered a constitutional coup in the country.
The headlines of a number of newspapers in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which is opposed to the Arab Spring, showed joy at excluding the Elnahda movement from power.
The Saudi newspaper, Al-Riyadh, wrote that the Tunisian people were fed up with the conflict of parties and the collapse of the state, noting the need to complete the demands of the demonstrators to dissolve the elected parliament.
Okaz titled its coverage of the Tunisian issue, saying, “Tunisia is being cleansed of the abomination of the Brotherhood,” stressing that what happened was not a coup.
The Saudi academic close to bin Salman, Turki Al-Hamad, also described the democracy in Tunisia as the Brotherhood, criticizing those who call what happened in this country the term “coup.”
“Ignoring that this was a Brotherhood democracy, that is, tailored to the Brotherhood’s dimensions.”
The Brotherhood, and indeed all political Islam, is completely contradictory in its premise with the principles of democracy, no matter how they try to embellish it,” he added.
