Digital Deception:

A recent report by disinformation researchers Marc Owen Jones and Sohan Dsouza revealed a multi-platform global influence campaign promoting anti-Muslim hate and sectarianism. Jones and Dsouza’s report highlights the use of disinformation to spread a broadly neoconservative agenda, including xenophobic, anti-immigration, and anti-Muslim propaganda and disinformation. The campaigns also sought to promote sectarian division in Lebanon, while framing Qatar as the motivator of a sinister conspiracy to Islamize Europe. Against the backdrop of the war on Gaza; and a series of consequential elections in Europe and the United States (U.S.), the campaigns fall under broader attempts to shape public opinion using hate speech. It is one of the largest known influence campaigns regarding Meta advertisement spending to target the European Union (EU). 

The Middle East Council on Global Affairs (ME Council) will host a webinar to analyze the influence campaign’s impacts on Qatar’s relations with Western nations and the European and U.S. elections and their outcomes. The discussion will convene experts to unpack the drivers and ramifications of these developments and address key questions, including: which actors are involved in the campaign? What are the implications of the campaigns on public opinion and, what roles should social media companies take in tackling them? How are shifts in public opinion translating into policy in the EU, United Kingdom (UK), and the U.S., particularly amid the far-right surge in Europe? How has or might this campaign impact Qatar’s relations with these Western blocs and states?