Army of fake social media accounts defend UAE presidency of climate summit

Army of fake social media accounts defend UAE presidency of climate summit

An army of fake social media accounts on Twitter and the blogging site Medium have been promoting and defending the controversial hosting of a UN climate summit by the United Arab Emirates.

The president of the Cop28 climate talks is Sultan Al Jaber, who is also the chief executive of the state oil giant Adnoc, which has major net zero-busting expansion plans.

Posts from fake accounts claimed: “The UAE’s commitment to being the perfect host for Cop28 is a testament to its leadership in tackling climate change,” and that Al Jaber is “the ally the climate movement needs”. Others retweeted or reposted UAE government tweets or sought to rebut criticism. One account had an AI-generated profile picture, but text labelling the image as fake had not been cropped out.