The "Sanad" unit for news verification in Al-Jazeera network conducted an analysis of a number of hashtags that topped social networking sites in conjunction with the events taking place in Tunisia.
The analysis conducted by "Sanad" - last Monday - included several tags, including "Tunisia revolts against the Brotherhood", "Tunisia", "Qais Saeed" and "TUNIS", in addition to the interaction between about 14 thousand different accounts, at a rate of 40 thousand interactions between them.
Below is a picture of the network of accounts participating in the hashtag "Tunisia revolts against the Brotherhood" and the hashtag participating in the "Tunisia", "Kais Said" and "Tunis" hashtags.
Network marking "Tunisia rises up against the Brotherhood" (communication sites)
Network called "Tunisia" and "Kais Said" (communication sites)
The analysis showed that the accounts dominating the interaction in the hashtags are of nationalities other than Tunisian, in which Saudi, Emirati and Bahraini networks topped the tweets on the hashtags, and the proportion of Tunisian accounts in the interactions decreased, and tweeting on the hashtags witnessed unusual activity, which indicates the presence of manipulation in them.
"Sanad" monitored the most influential accounts in the circulating hashtags, among them "Tunisia is revolting against the Brotherhood." “Emirati deterrence @emarati_shield”, which are accounts with a well-known political agenda.
The “Tunisia”, “Qais Saeed” and “Tunis” hashtags received many interactions, the most prominent of which was the interaction with Al Jazeera’s breaking news account via Twitter, and personal accounts issued by Abdullah Al-Shaer, who describes himself as a Bahraini businessman and member of the electronic defense committees. The poet has his own network of fake accounts that share his tweets, but Twitter suspended those accounts for violating the platform's rules.
Abdullah Al Shaer Network (social networking sites)
Regarding the manipulation network and its geographical location, the hashtag “Tunisia is rising up against the Brotherhood” contained fake accounts that systematically retweet the largest number of accounts within the network for both Saudi, Emirati and Egyptian accounts, as well as the account of Hussein al-Balushi “hemarati73”, which relies on intense retweet. To increase interaction through the hashtag, here is an image showing the mechanism of action of raising interaction accounts:
Network interaction on the tag "Tunisia is rising up against the Brotherhood" (communication sites)
As for the interaction networks on the “Tunisia”, “Kais Saeed” and “Tunis” hashtags, Saudi, Emirati and Bahraini accounts were also the masters of the situation, such as the “1Cash9999” account, which is surrounded by a private network whose tasks are to retweet and describes the account itself as a specialist in advertising.
The same is the case with the Twitter services account "paolbe", which is also surrounded by its own retweet network, and this is a model of the networks of Gulf advertising accounts that exploit the hashtag.
Sanad's analysis concluded that the accounts of Gulf influencers dominated interaction and tweeting via hashtags related to the situation in the Tunisian political scene on July 26, including other fake accounts that increase the rate of interaction.
The hashtags contain many Gulf networks that exploit the interaction for the purpose of their own propaganda, while the interaction comes through the hashtag “Tunisia rises up against the Brotherhood” in the context of Saudi and Emirati “propaganda” directed at attacking the Muslim Brotherhood and inflaming events in Tunisia and portraying it as a revolution against the group.