The Control of Information.
How the rich and powerful shape the media and control your mind. By Dr. Judith Brown
The Middle East, the Caucasus, and Western Asia.
This is an area where the Western powers, especially the USA, has been involved militarily for over 25 years; the USA has military bases in several countries in this region. After the invasion of Iraq in 2002, the US also put forward a plan in 2001 to overthrow seven Arab governments that were supportive of the Palestinian cause [1]here, ostensibly to protect Israel. This adventurism by the USA has created instability in this region, with constant political change and war. Another aspect of foreign interference is the creation of divisions between different groups, particularly focusing on religion. The Western mainstream media has taken an active role in shaping public opinion to support these US ambitions. The fact check industry in this region has been rapidly developed over the past decade, funded by Western monies; fact checking activities within each country have become a mechanism of soft power.
To add further instability, since the change of administration in the USA in 2025 some of the US policies have changed. Change has resulted from the defunding of organisations that are active in promoting censorship and enabling soft power operations. For example, one major funder, USAID, has been closed down. It is too early to conclude how this will change fact checking in the region. However, under President Trump, the USA continues to unconditionally support Israel and in this respect the USA’s policies in the region have remained unchanged for many decades.
The examination of censorship activities in this region will be divided into four categories. These are as follows:
Part 1a and 1b - The introduction to fact checking in the Middle East.
Part 2 - The mainstream news covering the Middle East – and the killing of stories that do not fit the narrative.
Part 3 - The Caucasus and Western Asia – politics and fact checking.
Part 4 - The Caucasus and Western Asia – censorship and narrative manipulation.
The Middle East, the Caucasus, and Western Asia – Part 1a.
“Poor Arabs know what to do but they don’t have money and power to change things. Rich Arabs have money and power, but they don’t know what to do with it.” Sharif Nashashibi, founder of Arab Media Watch, 2004.
The Middle East and the history of censorship of Arabs.
The Middle East has for centuries been misrepresented in the Western world. One of the most astute examinations of this misrepresentation was by Palestinian/American academic Edward Said, recorded in his passionate book, Orientalism, first published in 1978. He described the complex power relationships revealed by the act of writing, politics, language, and power. He describes how over centuries, Western journalists, fiction writers, and scholars helped to build up a prevalent and hostile image of the Eastern cultures as inferior, stagnant, and degenerate.
In 2002, after returning from the Middle East, I undertook a PhD that examined the influences on Arab imagery in the British media. This was a fascinating period in history for Arab imagery, as my study began immediately after the 9/11 event in USA, including the Iraq War and active Palestinian resistance within Israel. My doctorate research revealed that through many mechanisms, the hegemonic power of the USA was the major influence on the way that Arabs were represented in Britain. At the time of this research, the fact check industry did not exist.
The misrepresentations of Arab imagery at that time manufactured consent for the illegal military adventures that have devastated much of the Arab world, and the repercussions from these events continue until this day. The attacks on Arab countries that resisted American power have continued until 2025. These have been undertaken by Israel, Western forces, Arab countries allied to USA, Turkey, or extremist militias paid for by Western powers. The misrepresentations and demonisation of Arabs and Muslims in this area has continued to be supported by Western politicians, Western journalists, and Western academics.
The Middle East.
The Middle East covers the Levant (countries bordering the east of the Mediterranean Sea), the Arabian Peninsula, plus Iraq and Kuwait. These countries were part of the Islamic Empire, most inhabitants speak Arabic, and most call themselves Arabs. The exception is Israel, formerly Palestine, previously an Arab country that was colonised by European Jews, many of them Holocaust survivors who moved to the region after the Second World War. Additionally, many Arab Jews who previously resided in Arab counties until 1948 moved to live in Israel. Israeli colonisation was encouraged by Western powers that have provided Israel with sophisticated weaponry throughout this period, including nuclear weapons. Palestine and Israel have sadly has remained an area of military occupation and conflict until today.
Today the Middle East consists of thirteen countries, most of them ruled by authoritarian regimes. Much of this area was without definite country boundaries until the British Empire took over the area from the Ottoman Empire, by military conquest, during the First World War. However, areas within the ancient Middle East were named as Syria, Mesopotamia, Palestine and Arabia. Ancient sheikdoms ruled these areas, some of which still exist, such as in Kuwait, Oman, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). These Arab counties were occupied by the British and French between the two world wars, and current country boundaries were drawn by the occupiers. The exception is Yemen, an ancient country to the Southwest of the Arabian peninsula, which has retained more less the same boundaries for thousands of years. It was a hereditary monarchy for a thousand years until Yemen’s revolution in the 1970s, when it became a republic.
Until 9/11, Arab nations were divided between those who were allies of the Western powers, and those that formed a resistance to Western hegemony, seeking independent Arab control. Arab countries are not only found in the Middle East, but also in North Africa, however, the fact checking activities in North Africa will be dealt with in the African analysis. Those whose leaders are allies of the West included Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Egypt and the UAE. Those that were striving for independence before 9/11 included Palestine, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, and Iraq. Algeria, Tunisia, and Yemen had more complex political positions. When this data was collected in 2023, Palestine remained under a repressive and aggressive military occupation, Libyan and Iraqi leaders had been overthrown, and Lebanon and Syria were under threat from Western and Israeli powers. The Syrian government was overthrown in 2024, and Lebanon’s situation is fragile.
Surveillance in the Middle East.
In most Middle Eastern countries there is a system of surveillance, the Mukhabarat, that spies on the local populations in order to control their activities and speech, in order to repress any opposition to their unelected leaders. Israel follows this pattern by having a powerful internal intelligence network known as Shin Bet. In the past surveillance was performed by people on the ground, but today Middle Eastern counties are increasingly using sophisticated technology to monitor their own populations. This system of surveillance is akin to the fact check industry that now pervades the whole global community, to monitor populations and control them.
For example, UAE has pioneered the extensive use of technology to keep tabs on its citizens and residents. Data is being collected and analysed on a massive scale. The government can do this via the telecommunications companies Du and Etisalat, as the government is the majority shareholder. They buy technology from Western companies such as McAfee, and use other international security agencies to provide software and to buy cybersecurity services. They cooperate with the international intelligence networks, providing data to Washington [2] here. The UAE is not alone in these types of activities, which are found across most of the Arab world. This is especially true since the uprisings in the Arab Spring, which Arab rulers took as a warning and caused them to increase surveillance to protect their own interests.
Western-funded fact check platforms in the Middle East.
Not surprisingly, there is little need for Western intelligence to set up fact check networks in the Middle East, especially in countries that are aligned with American power. In seven of the thirteen countries, there are no local fact check platforms, and in five of the remaining countries there is only one local platform. Jordan, however, is the exception with a developed fact check industry, which mostly focuses on two large highly funded platforms. Two agencies fact check on behalf of Facebook in these Arab countries, AFP from France, and Fatabiyyano from Jordan.
In 2020 a new Arab hub for fact check platforms was formed, called the Arab Fact Checks Network (AFCN), based in Jordan [3] here. It is a development of the Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism, also with an English language website. The website has the logo of two UN organisations - these may be funders or partners [4] here. Its website is written in English. AFCN is funded by the usual large array of Western donors – social media corporations including Google and Meta, the European Commission, American and German foundations including the Ford Foundation, American funded organisations such as the Organised Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), and the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN). Globally, OCCRP and IFCN are regular funders of the fact check industry. In the AFCN’s resource section, essays include information on ‘information disorder’, ‘combatting disinformation’ and the IFCN Code of Principles. As well as being funded by Western organisations, it also operates using the same system as Western fact check groups, a form of censorship colonisation.
Where countries have one local fact check platform, this is usually linked to the West. For example, Tech4Peace, an Iraqi platform, has links to Canada, and may be based there [5] here. It is funded by Global Innovation through Science and Technology (GIST) [6]here, an American not for profit that operates in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. GIST is funded by US Department of State, American Universities, and American philanthropists. Its website states that it has access to social media platforms to censor groups or people that are ‘unsuitable’.
Another example is Syria, a country that until December 2024 was part of the resistance to US domination. Syria has now been overrun by an Islamist militant group, aligned with Al Qaeda, and the new unelected ruler is Mohammed Al Jalani. Jalani was listed as a terrorist by the USA until the overthrow of the ousted Syrian leader, Bashir Assad. Jalani states that his organisation is an ally of Israel, and in addition to his regime, USA, Israel, and Turkey are occupying parts of the previous Syrian state. It has been claimed that the new Syrian regime has been involved in attacks on minorities since its installation [7] here. Syria was of course fact checked prior to the fall of the Assad government and since; the fact checkers include a platform registered in Turkey; Verify-SY has been fact checking in Syria since 2016. has 20 fact checker employees listed on its platform, but gives no information about its funding on its website [8] here. The Verify-SY website is partly in Arabic, partly in English. France 24 media state that Verify-SY is funded by ‘some European governments [9] here.
The Verify-SY fact checks are critical of the recently overthrown government in Syria, and their fact checks tie in with narratives of governments such as Europe, USA and Israel. These include verifying facts that have been challenged by esteemed academics and journalists[10] here, such as the chemical weapons attacks that Verify-SY attributes to the previous administration. The website states that journalists operating this platform are based in Syria and Turkey. Unusually, although Verify-SY is not listed on Meta’s website as a third-party fact checker, the Verify-SY website states it has been a trusted partner of Facebook in the MENA region since 2019.
Palestine also has one fact checking platform, Tahaqaq [11] here. This is funded by the AFCN, the EU, and French and German NGOs. Most of its fact checkers are part time or volunteers. There are a small number of fact checks on the site, most of them debunking Israeli claims. This included a picture of a child carrying a bomb that fact checkers state was not in Gaza as claimed, and the massacres of children that had been given a ‘Pallywood’ title were described as accurate and not enacted. Like other fact check sites worldwide, Tahaqaq avoids fact checking on important issues. This includes the contested issue of an alleged genocide in Gaza, currently under consideration by the International Court of Justice, and highly relevant to Arabs, especially Palestinians. Instead, Tahaqaq checks insignificant trivia on the fringes of he war story.
The Tahaqaq site also suggests that photos of Palestinian victims should not be displayed in the media, based on human rights concerns. However, this feeds into the Western media narrative of avoiding pictures of war atrocities. It hides appalling images of Palestinian suffering from Western audiences, that then cannot understand the horrors that are a normal part of military campaigns against civilians in war zones such as Gaza. Certainly, Palestinian victims are not displayed regularly in the Western media. My experience of working in Arab countries for several years is that it is normal for graphic scenes to be published in the Arab media. This implies that Tahaqaq has been influenced to cooperate with the wishes of its Western funders.
There is also one fact checking platform in Qatar, associated with the television channel Al Jazeera (AJ). AJ is owned by the ruling family of Qatar, and it was the first to have a Western-style format, similar to rolling news programmes such as CNN. Many of its journalists have been recruited from European and American broadcasters. Its English-speaking channel was banned from broadcasting in many parts of the Western world, after October 2023. This coincided with horrific reports of a possible genocide in Gaza. However, AJ journalists provided excellent coverage of the suffering in Gaza, and many AJ journalists were killed during Irael’s attacks on Gaza. Included in AJ’s outputs were fact checks of Israeli and Western claims, which were dealt with very professionally, such as an investigation into claims of 40 beheaded babies [12] here. However, AJ’s output is often in a very similar style to that of Western broadcasters, and it usually follows Western narratives even on many Arab issues.
Focusing on Jordan, AFP fact checks on behalf of Facebook. Jordan’s own three local fact check platforms include AKEED, that called itself a media observatory’ [13]here. AKEED Is part of the Jordan Media Institute (JMI); JMI’s extensive funding networks include the Hashemite Court, a government ministry, CNN, six banks, three telecommunications companies, and several large corporations. The international networks listed on the JMI website and include UN divisions, Middle East universities, media institutes, and international media companies, including the BBC. Activities of the JMI include research, fact checking, media literacy training, and training journalists [14] here.
Another Jordanian fact check platform is Fatabiyyano. Please note there are a variety of spellings found for the name of this platform. It operates in the same manner as European fact check platforms, using Arabic language. It partners with the American company Meedan in order to use its tools, and is a verified signatory of the IFCN, hence it has close links to the USA. Fatabiyyano fact checks on behalf of Facebook and WhatsApp in sixteen Arab countries in the Middle East and North Africa; Fatabyyano states this is the main sources of is income [15] here. It also fact checks for TikTok. Its funders include the IFCN and the International Center for Journalists (IFCJ); the IFCJ receives its funds from American foundations, various American government departments and embassies, and large mostly American corporations [16] here. The last fact check platform located, Misbar, is linked to an Arab media company that operates in Jordan and Tunisia, and possibly elsewhere, but very little information was found on its website [17] here.
Conclusion.
Surveillance and checking of narratives in the Middle East is not new; it has been undertaken by many Arab governments over decades, maybe centuries, as a method of controlling populations. However, Western-style fact checking has started to take hold, with one French fact check platform and one Jordanian platform holding contracts with Facebook for third-party fact checking in most of the countries in this region. Jordan is a leader in the fact check industry, with a number of fact checking platforms in operation, including a media observatory. The examination of other fact check groups reveals that many operate in English language, most receive all of their funding from sources in the USA. One exception is the Qatari news platform Al Jazeera that has its own fact check platform, funded by the ruler of Qatar.
The next section, 1b, will examine the manner in which the French platform AFP fact checks on hot button Arab issues. This is highly relevant as AFP has a presence in most Arab countries, and contracts to fact check across the region.