Regional media stoop to new lows by publishing fake news about emergency in Qatar

Ever since the siege of Qatar began on June 5, there has been a massive influx of fake news against Qatar appearing in newspapers from Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The latest example of the propagation and dissemination of such false news is a story titled ‘Qatar bans its citizens, residents from leaving country,’ which appeared in Khaleej Times yesterday.

Khaleej Times, which used to be one of the more respected newspapers in the region, has now stooped to a new low, and its readers in Qatar are not amused. When the story was posted on Facebook, there was an outpour of rage against it from users.

“Shame on you Khaleej Times for spreading Fake news and Fitna in the region... I am an expat resident of Qatar and has travelled in and out of Qatar four times during the past 30 days,” said Speed O Ali.

Sattar Malik felt the blockading countries should clean their own houses before demanding to shut down Al Jazeera.

“UAE demands to shutdown Al Jazeera. First clean your own home by banning KT dude. Who is spreading negative and fake news to create chaos amongst people?” he asked.

Another user, Rhonda Allam, also did not mince her words.

“Seriously you should be ashamed of yourself! How low do you need to go that you resort to spreading complete and utter nonsense in order to TRY and tarnish Qatars image? You can plot and plan, but Allah is the best of planners!” she said.

Rachel Morris, another user living in Qatar, had this to say.

“This is propaganda. I am an expat and have been living in Qatar for 10 years. Tomorrow I am leaving the country on vacation for the THIRD time since this situation. So…#fakenews,” she noted.

Meanwhile, Hooriya Hussain had a solution to what needs to be done.

“You can mark this story as false news with Facebook. This should help bring down the pages content credibility score. Simply click report story. Also message the page to take it down,” she wrote.

Earlier, Gulf Times had reported that a protracted campaign by blockading countries, using an ‘army of online users,’ to tarnish Qatar’s image had turned out to be a damp squib.