Report reveals campaign promoting racist, Islamophobic, anti-Qatar views
Investigation finds that years-long operation sought to portray Qatar as driving force behind mass migration to Europe.
A years-long, paid-for influence operation promoting racist, Islamophobic and anti-Qatar views has been uncovered by two academics, with the evidence suggesting the campaign was intended to serve Israeli interests.
The investigation, which took three years, was published on Thursday. It detailed an operation that likely cost more than $11m and was carried out across 30 countries, including in Europe, the United States and Lebanon.
As part of the campaign, several million internet users were exposed to advertisements on sites like YouTube, TikTok and Facebook that pushed an agenda, according to the report titled Manufacturing the “Great Replacement”.
France accounted for about a third of the total number of advertisement placements, the highest share among the countries targeted, the report said. Meanwhile, the advertisements recorded the largest number of exposures in the United Kingdom, at 154 million. The US came second, with 100 million.