With every political crisis in the GCC region, the digital space erupts in a parallel arena of confrontation alongside the political dispute.
Debate on social media platforms stiffens rapidly, moving beyond political criticism to target societies and governments, in what at times appears to be a coordinated effort to redefine the “other” from a historical partner into a current adversary.
This sharp volatility in digital discourse reveals coordinated efforts and underlying mechanisms of influence and direction, raising questions about the actors fueling this rhetoric and controlling its tempo.
Electronic Trolls
The term “electronic trolls” gained widespread circulation in GCC media and political discourse following the eruption of the 2017 diplomatic crisis with Qatar, when it shifted from a limited media term into a central analytical concept used to explain patterns of digital escalation accompanying the crisis. The term became directly associated with the phase in which Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Bahrain imposed a political and economic boycott on Qatar on June 5 of that year, reflecting a qualitative shift in the management of disputes—from traditional diplomatic and media channels to arenas of open popular influence in the digital space.
With renewed regional tensions, electronic trolls have once again moved to the forefront of the digital conflict in the current crisis between Saudi Arabia and the UAE, marked by public exchanges of accusations between users from both sides over who is behind these digital campaigns.
Emirati accounts attributed the management of this activity to Saudi Arabia’s Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology, known as Etidal. In contrast, Saudi accounts directed direct accusations at Emirati figures, alleging they were overseeing similar digital campaigns.
These reciprocal digital disputes reveal a structural transformation in the management of the GCC crises, as the tools of conflict are no longer confined to political decision-making circles or official media discourse. Instead, they have expanded into the popular digital sphere, reflecting an escalation in the use of indirect influence tools and raising serious questions about the impact on the GCC social cohesion and the future of trust among its components.
Elite Retorts
The sharp polarization accompanying the GCC crises is no longer limited to anonymous accounts or so-called electronic trolls. It has expanded to include political, cultural, and media elites with significant symbolic weight, who have gradually become active participants in producing escalatory rhetorics and redirecting public opinion. This shift reflects the transformation of crises from containable political disagreements into open symbolic conflicts, in which history, identity, and symbols are invoked and managed through the digital space as a parallel arena of confrontation.
In this context, the intervention of former Lebanese lawmaker and prominent Druze leader Walid Jumblatt drew attention after he accused “an Arab state that has relations with Israel” of seeking to encircle Saudi Arabia. Although framed implicitly, the political substance of the claim was sufficient to ignite a wave of angry responses, most notably from Emirati academic Dr. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla, who attacked Jumblatt and described him as “stupid.”
The exchange was not a singular incident. Another post by Egyptian television host Amr Adeeb reproduced a similar state of polarization when he said Saudi Arabia had been compelled to confront the situation “when the matter crossed Saudi security red lines.”
Saudi journalist Dawood Al-Shiryan also wrote a post accusing Yemen’s Southern Transitional Council of waging a “proxy” conflict. The comment was widely interpreted as an implicit accusation of indirect Emirati involvement. In turn, Dr. Abdulkhaleq Abdulla wrote that “tensions that erupt at times between GCC states stem from an ‘older brother complex,’” a remark widely interpreted as directed at Saudi Arabia. That prompted a direct response from Al-Shiryan, who said: “Saudi Arabia acts in accordance with its political and religious standing and its geographic depth.”
Media Rhetorics vs. Official Policy
Warning of the dangers of conflating media rhetorics with official state policies during times of crisis, political writer and researcher Dr. Hadi bin Aaidh notes that this confusion is no longer a passing phenomenon but has become a structural feature of the contemporary media landscape, amid the unprecedented openness of the digital space and the decline of traditional media’s monopoly over shaping public discourse. With the rise of social media platforms, the expression of opinion is no longer confined to media institutions or experts; instead, the field has opened to a wide mix of specialists and non-specialists, where methodological knowledge intersects with emotional impressions and superficial readings of events.
Bin Aaidh stresses that the core problem does not lie in the shift from traditional to digital media as much as it does in the erosion of the boundary between opinion grounded in expertise and analysis and random opinion that lacks cognitive tools yet sometimes enjoys wider reach and influence than sober discourse. The risk of this conflation intensifies when media discourse—or even the views of individuals and public figures—is treated as a direct reflection of official state policies.
As for the role of GCC media during crises, he notes that media neutrality remains a relative concept governed by political reference points and editorial lines specific to each outlet. As a result, the media does not merely convey facts but participates in framing them through analysis, the selection of angles, and the choice of guests—potentially shaping public opinion or deepening fault lines during periods of tension.
Sakina Abdallah
A Saudi writer, researcher, and TV presenter
