A new disinformation campaign alleging that a coup has taken place against the Emir of Qatar is just the latest episode in a three-year effort to discredit the wealthy Gulf country by its neighbors.
On Monday, thousands of Twitter accounts retweeted a doctored video claiming that gunshots had been fired in the coastal Qatari city of Al Wakrah. The footage alleged that a plan to overthrow the ruling Al-Thani family was underway. At least two other videos featuring audio of gunshots pushed similar narratives.
The videos mark the latest in a new round of attacks against Doha. Last week, an article published by the Saudi Gazette alleged that a member of the Qatari ruling family had called on Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani to step down.
Marc Owen Jones, an assistant professor of Middle East Studies and Digital Humanities at Hamad bin Khalifa University in Doha, was the first to discover that the videos had been manipulated and audio tracks of gunshots had been dubbed onto the footage.
