Scoop: Is this the biggest ever influence op to target the EU and EU Elections using FB ads?
New Report: "The Qatar Plot": Unveiling a Covert, Multi-Platform Influenece Operation Using Anti-Muslim Propaganda to Attack Qatar in th
Very pleased to announce the publication of this report, co-authored and co-investigated with the awesome Sohan Dshouza. Five months of work, and the scale of the operation is pretty breathtaking. The executive summary is below but you can find the full report here. You can also read the AFP report on the investigation here.
Executive Summary
This report details a sprawling, multi-modal, two-wave influence operation, most of which spreads xenophobic, anti-Muslim, and anti-Qatar propaganda and disinformation, with the rest cloaked in language of compassion and secularism.
Some of the content is specific, asking users to divest or boycott Qatar-owned institutions like Paris Saint-Germain F.C. or Harrods, or applauding Texas A&M University’s recent decision to shut down its Qatar campus.
The operation is active on Facebook, Twitter/X, Wikimedia (mainly Wikipedia and Wikidata), YouTube, Telegram, and TikTok online; and has made offline appearances on billboards and at the CPAC conference. It has deployed dozens of videos and images across platforms, across different levels of quality, with many clearly AI-generated.
It has spread its narratives online using at least 978 Facebook ads, hosted on at least 25 Facebook Pages, supported by a network of at least 44 “burner” Pages, some of which were clearly stolen; using several overt, branded Twitter accounts, supported by more covert advertising/booster accounts, and likely paid engagement networks too; and by vandalising at least 47 Wikimedia properties using 9 accounts often working in coordination.
The operation has targeted France, the UK, the USA, and Saudi Arabia in the 1st wave (2024/JAN-MAR); and the UK, Belgium, France, Sweden, Croatia, Malta, and Germany, in the 2nd wave (2024/MAY-JUN, just weeks before EU elections, and in a UK general election year).
It includes content in Arabic, Spanish, French and English.
The minimum reach of this operation on Facebook is 41,074,052, with a conservative projected Facebook advertising spend range of between 100,000 USD - 272,000k USD This means it may have reached up to 61% of the entire population of France, and is likely the largest known Facebook influence campaign targeting countries in the EU The campaigns on Twitter also accumulated at least several million impressions/views, and the TikTok video was viewed over a million times.
Despite always violating Facebook’s advertising standards or rules, the operation has been resilient. Most pages taken down mid-attack were observed either restored, or migrated to a different URL. It seems the network uses infrastructure from and tactics honed in Vietnam’s content/engagement farming industry and digital asset marketplaces, including techniques enabling it to repeatedly sneak past platform moderation crews’ procedures for inauthentic conduct detection, scrutiny, and even takedown.
The mission of the operation appears to be attacking Qatar and advancing neoconservative geopolitical interests, stoking and exploiting anti-immigration, anti-Muslim, and anti-protester sentiment in the process — during an election-heavy year, no less.
The operation started towards the end of 2023, and has run consistently since.