UAE Cracks Down on Social Media in an Effort to Maintain Its Phony Image

Dubai has been struggling to maintain its image as a safe and picturesque locale since the region has been under attack during the Trump-Iran war.  But early on, as Iranian missiles began to fall on Dubai (the largest and most ostentatiously luxe city in the United Arab Emirates) the facade began to crack.   The city once touted as one of the safest places in the world is now no longer a peaceful haven. And the UAE government has rushed to try and control the narrative, prompting a huge crackdown on anyone sharing photos of missile attacks and their aftermath. Instead, content creators have been posting weirdly similar photos and videos full of praise, parroting buzzwords about the city’s strong, stable leaders.

Satellite images of Dubai show smoke from areas damaged by air strikes

How can influencers continue to portray the “Dubai dream” online, when the whole world knows that the city has been mired in conflict? And what about the ordinary people who are being detained for sharing photos and videos that go against the official line?

According to Radha Stirling (founder and CEO of Detained in Dubai,  an organization that provides legal assistance to foreigners dealing with legal injustice and travel bans), the UAE authorities are “arresting first, asking questions later” in a way that feels unprecedented. “We’ve never seen, I think, people rounded up as they have in this current climate, where you happen to be in the vicinity of an explosion and the police turn up at your doorstep the next day and say, ‘You were around this explosion yesterday. Can I have a look at your phone please?’”

Damage to a Dubai condominium building from a drone attack

The case that Stirling is alluding to made headlines when three people who survived a drone strike on their apartment building were arrested after privately sharing a photo with family members, simply to confirm that they were alive.  “They scroll through your messages, see that you sent a photo to your mum or something like that, and suddenly you’re arrested,” Stirling says. “That’s not down to national security. Plus, those images [of strikes] had already been in the international media, so there’s a lot of confusion.”

It is a situation she describes as “really Orwellian – when you’ve got survivors of drone strikes being taken into custody and treated in that way, when there’s obviously no ill intent”. 

A 60-year-old British tourist has also been charged under cyber crime laws after allegedly filming Iranian missiles over the city; he was one of more than 20 people charged together, according to Detained in Dubai. In cases like these, Stirling says, often “people are grouped together after just interacting with something that’s been published by someone else”. Something as seemingly innocuous as forwarding a video or interacting with an Instagram post could result in detention. “You see a picture of a hotel on fire, you press reshare and suddenly you’re a criminal as well,” Stirling says. 

Fire at Dubai's iconic Fairmont Hotel, which was hit by an Iranian missile strike

Despite wanting to attract western visitors, UAE has some of the world’s strictest laws around freedom of speech and expression. While it may feel like an anathema to someone brought up in a democratic country, there, any criticism of the government, state policies or the royal family is strictly prohibited. Cyber crime legislation effectively criminalizes the posting or sharing of any content seen to harm the state’s reputation.

The rules are also notoriously “broad, grey, subjective and open to any interpretation”, Stirling argues. “I think they’re designed that way to give maximum freedom and flexibility to the authorities to charge [people with] whatever they want.”

In 2023, for example, Craig Ballentine, a man from County Tyrone in Northern Ireland, was arrested upon arriving at Abu Dhabi airport after posting a negative Google review about a former employer in Dubai. Ballentine was accused of slander and faced jail time, but was eventually allowed to return home a few months later.

Burj Al Arab after an overnight strike by drone debris.

Over the past several weeks, the UAE government has warned against spreading content “intended to incite public disorder and undermine general stability.” The British Embassy in the UAE has also cautioned Brits against taking photos or sharing images of missiles.

But Stirling says that the authorities are “still going back and arresting people for things done before those big warnings were put out”. Sometimes, she claims “they are waiting seven to nine days before they turn up at someone’s house to arrest them. I haven’t seen it as widespread and draconian as this, and I think that environment is creating a lot of fear for people”.

High-profile influencers and celebrities, Stirling explains, are “not going to get into any trouble”. Instead, they are far more likely to receive special treatment from the government; they will not be the ones detained in a jail without a lawyer. “The problem is these influencers are being nurtured as though they’re members of the government. They’re being treated as government staff, and they’ve got all the privileges of that”.  In fact, influencers are so important to the government that the tourism department recently launched an “influencer academy” designed to lure creators to the region (who will in turn draw followers in with their glamorous portrayal of the city). Turning on them would risk undermining this strategy. 

A Pakistani driver died after debris from a strike fell onto his vehicle in the Al Barsha area

It was reported in French media that the influencer Maeva Ghennam had been arrested after sharing footage of Iranian missiles, and telling her three million followers that her “stomach [was] in knots” and her knees were “shaking” with fear. The 28-year-old, however, denied this, and said that she had been summoned to talk to the police about a separate case relating to her make-up brand. 

There are others who have emphasized to their followers just how safe they feel, only to leave the city soon after. The Apprentice star Luisa Zissman, who moved to Dubai late last year, told her Instagram fans that “I do have faith that UAE defense will keep us all safe”, before later heading back to the UK. She has insisted that the return was a planned one. Now she is working on flying her six horses home, a process that could cost around £25,000, and has offered a free private jet flight to anyone willing to bring back her dog Crumble, who remains in Dubai. 

The BBC analyzed 129 posts from Dubai-based influencers in the first days of the conflict, and found that many contained language stressing “stability”, “safety” and “strong leadership”. Many of these posts, the BBC discovered, had been uploaded within minutes or even seconds of each other.  It is difficult to know whether clips like these are genuine expressions of patriotism or the result of some sort of co-ordinated government effort.

Even as the top tier of influencers are being directed or perhaps paid to spread government-approved messaging, Stirling says, “that filters down”. There’s incentive for aspiring content creators “to also play the game, amplify the message, get on the bandwagon” and essentially have a chance to upgrade their status.  The usual modus operandi for the UAE, she adds, “is they try to pretend something bad that they’re doing is not happening”, bolstered by this influencer army. But, she cautions, “it usually doesn’t work – it actually backfires. I don’t think that does very well for the country, when you’ve got people just outright lying that it’s totally safe here. No, it’s not.”