[Someone1234]

> publishing information deemed harmful to state interests

Is the charge, which I think kind of speaks for itself. Full on: "You embarrassed us, straight to jail."

In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest and shared by the media then we'd reflect on if our routing is safe/correct and make proportional changes for safety. Not a big deal, nobody is fired, life moves on.

I feel like actions like this are going to hurt the UAE themselves, because how can you improve if there is no dialog? No information to even start a dialog? A lot of hard conversations are NOT going to be had because I guess it is a state secret?

[tremon]

how can you improve if there is no dialog

The UAE doesn't have a self-advancement culture, it's a capital-backed monarchy that imports pretty much all of its research and production; in other words it piggy-backs on the knowledge produced in other societies. There is no advancement through dialog in the country itself.

[fakedang]

Everything in the UAE is about being perfect. It's part and parcel of Arab culture, especially for the Gulf Arabs. Nope, we can't do any wrong, we're excellent individuals, we're an exceptional society, we're a remarkable nation. Every business deal is a fruitful deal, every investment is a multibagger investment, every project is a successful project, every Emirati/Gulf Arab professional is infallible. Normie government bureaucrats are addressed as "His/Her Excellency" even.

In such an environment, don't expect any introspection into failures or any risk-taking capacity. Because everything has to be perfect.

Dubai at least took a beating in 2008, and has since taken a more cautious and guarded approach than before. Abu Dhabi, Doha and Riyadh continue to take very cavalier attitudes - they're all ah so very perfect.

[jnaina]

Unfortunately UAE has evolved to become a petro-dollar fueled private enterprise, run by the royal families, cosplaying as a nation.

[pseudohadamard]

It's not just the UAE, it's pretty much all of the Gulf states. They're essentially a less obviously extreme version of Turkmenistan, or something like late-1930s Germany where everything looks prosperous and OK provided you walk very carefully and don't see some of the things that are happening.

[schiffern]

  >In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest and shared 

OTOH, anyone remember "loose lips sink ships?" Beyond the famous poster, it was backed up by robust censorship laws.[0][1]

You might say it's different since we were at war, but this ignores how the threat model and immediacy is very different in the UAE vs here in the (geographically well protected/isolated) US.

Battle damage assessment, especially if it's timely, is critical information in any conflict. This is especially true for modern drone-based / hybrid asymmetrical conflict.

[0] https://www.archives.gov/publications/prologue/2001/spring/m...

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Censorship

[jordanb]

Loose Lips Sink Ships was itself an information management scheme to avoid informing the public.

The Germans didn't have spies collecting rumors in the US. Nor did they need them during Operation Drumbeat (the U-Boat attack on the US coast). The US was completely unprepared for Drumbeat. They had no harbor defenses, no convoys, inadequate and unprepared coastwatcher and patrol services.

The point of the censorship is to not cause panic among the public as they realized how badly the US was losing. Drumbeat was worse for the US than the attack on Pearl Harbor was, both in terms of lost ships and number of Americans killed. It was about controlling embarrassment for the Navy. American ships were blowing up and sinking within eyesight of shore. Vacationers were finding dead seaman washed up on the beaches of Florida and New Jersey. The military did not want these events turning into major media events.

And to the extent that the censorship was justified, yes, at the very least we were legally in a properly declared war.

Ironically, there was one time the media did cause a massive problem that could have affected the outcome of the war.

The Chicago Tribune sent a reporter to Pearl Harbor after the battle of Midway and managed to learn from some indiscreet senior commanders that we knew where the Japanese fleet was because we cracked their codes.

The reporter published the story in the Tribune. It was pure dumb luck that the Japanese never noticed the story. Roosevelt wanted the reporter and Robert McCormick brought up on espionage charges, but Admiral King asked him not to prosecute because the Japanese didn't seem to notice the article but they'd definitely notice the trial.

[Legend2440]

>The Germans didn't have spies collecting rumors in the US.

Yes they did. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duquesne_Spy_Ring

[jordanb]

This ring was broken up before the US was even in the war. Operation Drumbeat began after the Pearl Harbor attack at the end of 1941 but was most intense in early 1942. There was lots of Bund activity in the 1930s and prior to Pearl Harbor but very little afterwards.

But also, even if there were Bund spies in American ports was unnecessary and unable to provide tactical information to the German U-boats. Unable due to practical limitations of communication. Unnecessary because the US was so ill-equipped for the battle. For instance, the Bund wouldn't have been able to report on the movement of convoys because there were no convoys.

The US still had charted aids to navigation light up, and cities weren't blacked out allowing the submarines to sit off the coast and see US ships silhouetted against the city skyline behind them. A German submarine sailed into New York harbor using a tourist map as a chart!

[lazide]

Germany not only had spies, there were multiple (albeit failed/foiled) sabotage attempts by Germany on US soil.

Part of the issue the US had is the very large (significant percent of the population) 1st gen German immigrant population. There were concerns they would sympathize.

What was actually happening is many of these immigrants were there to get away from Hitler and Germany as it was at the time, so Germany found most of its attempts stymied instead. But they did try.

[schiffern]

Mostly your post is just about the side-issue of whether (in 20/20 hindsight) the censorship in the USA was justified. However this ignores the fundamental double-standard toward the USA vs the UAE. In 20/20 hindsight the UAE censorship may turn out to be justified, or not, however we don't know yet.

  > And to the extent that the censorship was justified, yes, at the very least we were legally in a properly declared war.

Didn't I (preemptively) respond to this already?

"You might say it's different since we were at war, but this ignores how the threat model and immediacy is very different in the UAE vs here in the (geographically well protected/isolated) US."

In the UAE these laws are (equally) "proper" and "legal," so I don't see how the presence or absence of a formal declaration of war makes any difference here, or meaningfully responds to my point above.

[jordanb]

Legal process is important when you're curtailing people's rights. Although I guess if you're going to argue that the regime is already despotic and lawless that's.. a valid argument that I concede to?

[somenameforme]

Iran is going to be getting constant satellite date. They not only have their own satellite surveillance systems, but also will be getting support, probably covert, from a variety of other countries which also have robust satellite networks.

This is solely for "domestic" (which extends well beyond the UAE) PR purposes, and I expect the US is actively encouraging these countries, behind the scenes, to keep losses under wraps.

[walthamstow]

Yes, I read in the FT this week they're getting data from Chinese satellite companies

[alephnerd]

Feet and inches level precision matters. This is why these kinds of videos are tamped down because they can show how close or far off target a strike was, and is extremely valuable training data.

Additionally, seeing who responded, the agencies they are associated with, and their faces matter as well.

The UAE is an authoritarian state, but this is how most states operate during a state of war. Even Ukraine tamps down on videos and social media being shared of incidents based on the likelihood whether or not it would expose operational details.

[somenameforme]

Spy satellites do have precision in the feet and inches. Resolution tends to be in the sub-foot per pixel now a days. But nowhere near this resolution is realistically needed since precision munitions tend to have precision in the tens of meters, and all that really matters is whether you're hitting your target or not.

Another way you can see clearly that this is for "domestic" PR and propaganda purposes is that the US government has also compelled US satellite footage providers to censor the entire region. That is providing absolutely zero information to Iran, but is a desperate effort to pair impair the public's access to footage that would either confirm or reject various narratives around the war. I say desperate because Chinese commercial satellite imagery firms continue offering full access to footage of the warzone.

The US is even telling satellite firms which language to use, which is loaded with propaganda. For instance instead of speaking of locations being destroyed they're being compelled to say things like "Imagery shows the structure largely collapsed with debris covering the building footprint." I'd say it's 1984, but it's all so painfully ham-fisted that it's far more Brazil. [1]

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazil_(1985_film)

[post-it]

It's not in the interests of the UAE to improve. There's the (possibly misattributed? but topical nonetheless) quote by the previous emir of Dubai:

> My grandfather rode a camel, my father rode a camel, I drive a Mercedes, my son drives a Land Rover, his son will drive a Land Rover, but his son will ride a camel.

They want to prolong the Land Rover phase as long as possible.

[SanjayMehta]

For what it's worth, the quote is half and half. The full context is that he went on to say he wanted to avoid the second camel.

https://www.aap.com.au/factcheck/dubai-sheikhs-words-lost-in...

[Teknomadix]

So in other words; Mercedes-Benz was the peak, and he was estimating a decline trajectory slower than the rise.

[chasil]

Assuming that our civilizations can wean ourselves both from fossil fuels and chemical feedstocks, then the camel may be in their future.

I think the timing stated here is quite optimistic.

[throw_m239339]

Foreign residents cannot criticize UAE or its government and monarchy in any way, under threat of prison and/or torture.

How is that complicated to understand? It's a brutal regime with a fake Monaco to attract rich tourists, influencers, investors and prostitutes, but the moment you fall in disgrace in the eyes of the authorities, you're done.

> ‘I was beaten and tortured’: how a British father and son made a fortune in Dubai then became wanted men

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/05/british-father...

You're all acting here like UAE is some sort of reasonable country with fair laws, when it's a dictatorship.

[brikym]

We now know what happens to a lot of influencers and wannabes: https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/dubai-porta-potty-influencer...

The car junk yards are also really sketchy https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrGCv3sZXAQ

[t0mas88]

Exactly. A dictatorship with a medieval religious view on human rights related topics.

And most of those influencers aren't even rich...

[skywal_l]

Note that they did not "publish" the picture. They shared it in a private group. This is 1984 kind of stuff. This will hurt Dubai's brand way more than any kinetic attack from Iran.

[gerikson]

Dubai's brand (before the war) was "you're welcome to come here to make money, but criticize the government and you're out". I'm sure there's a ton of young influencers who don't know the first thing about the place to not have internalized it, but I remember a spate of articles and books about 15 years ago of Westerners falling afoul of the local laws and losing everything.

[notahacker]

Yeah, tbh people not scared by stories of people as wealthy and white and Western as then being prosecuted for kissing their unmarried opposite sex partner on the beach or falling out with the wrong person are not going to be worried about how wartime paranoia interacts with airline employees

[expedition32]

Actually all those people go to Dubai to SPEND the money. They still make the money in America, Australia and Europe.

An important footnote on the economy of Dubai.

[duped]

There are a lot of things that I would expect to hurt Dubai's "brand" but people still travel there. I don't understand why anyone would travel there in times of peace, let alone during war. You don't even need it for connecting flights.

[f6v]

> In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest

You'd absolutely get detained by authorities in Ukraine or Russia for sharing consequences of airstrikes on critical infrastructure. I'm sure other countries would do the same (not that it's good).

[traceroute66]

Well, in Russia you would most likely accidentally fall out of the window that a careless person left open.

[konart]

You can open Telegram and watch at videos and photos of almost any Ukrainian strike.

[alephnerd]

A large number of those tend to be vetted. Additonally, frontlines level videos do go through significant vetting and some form of MDM is used on personal phones in the frontlines.

Additionally, on the Ukraine side as well as the Russian side, civilian strike information isn't deemed critical from a NatSec perspective as plenty of Russians and Ukrainians lived on both sides of the border and still have relatives on either side, so both assume the other has granular level knowledge of non-frontline spaces.

[watwut]

In see tons of consequences of attacks on Ukrainian cities. They arw fairly normal thing to see.

Ukraine is not trying they are safe country as of now.

[dylan604]

obviously, countries have ways to determine BDAs for their attacks, but you don't have to give it to them for free. The concept of oversharing is lost in the age of social media.

[Animats]

> Is the charge, which I think kind of speaks for itself. Full on: "You embarrassed us, straight to jail."

That's exactly it, and the UAE admits it. The Atlantic covered this last month.[1] Dubai uses influencers as part of their strategy to market Dubai as a safe place for rich people. There's an influencer visa. There's a government Creators HQ office to help with relocation and permits. Dubai requires an “Advertiser Permit”, which include a ban on publishing anything that “might harm the national currency or the economic situation in the State.”

The BBC showed several influencer videos side by side, all with the same message: "Are you scared? No, because we know who protects us."[1] They're as on-message as Sinclair in the US.

So is AlJazeera, now. Earlier in the war, attacks on Dubai were reported. Now, they don't seem to be, although coverage on hits outside the UAE is good. AlJazeera is run by the UAE government.

The UAE has been cracking down on this for a while, according to Bellingcat.[3] "Think before you share. Spreading rumors is a crime."

The hits on the Burj Al Arab hotel, the Fairmont hotel, and Dubai's airport were too big to hide completely, but UAE authorities did take action against people who posted videos. That was back in late February - early March. News of later hits appears to have been successfully censored.

[1] https://www.theatlantic.com/national-security/2026/03/dubai-...

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-giBHZ31RMU

[3] https://www.bellingcat.com/news/2026/04/02/war-uae-iran-infu...

[dotancohen]

Most of what you've stated is relevant to Qatar, not UAE. I think that you've got the two confused.

[miohtama]

It's public interest of Dubainers of not to expose any problems, as the premise of the emirate is built on loose money, loose rules and high life and this kind of money is first to flee in the case of hiccups.

[brikym]

Problems such as 'Dubai porta-potty'

[throwawaysleep]

The UAE is a bunch of absolute monarchies. You are applying the processes of a democracy to hereditary absolute monarchies.

[beepbooptheory]

These days when you hear "most of the world.." used as a kind of indirect appeal to common-sense legislation, you just gotta wonder what or who they are talking about anymore.

Its a strange beautiful notion though. That there is some grand consesus out there somewhere, in The-most-of-the-world, where laws are just and rational, where states-of-exception only exist in the kitchens and the classrooms. I just know one day the barrelman will cry out, and we will know we have reached the-most-the-world.

[foxyv]

You are providing confirmation of a hit to the enemy as well as the state of the area after the explosion. This is valuable intelligence used for target lists on future strikes. Such information is also used for determining air defense coverage and estimating hit rates.

Open source intelligence is a very high priority in modern war. Social media provides massive amounts of free intelligence. For instance, a few secret US bases in Afghanistan were mapped using Strava data from runners.

https://www.wired.com/story/strava-heat-map-military-bases-f...

[netdur]

there are two sides, such as how photos can stress citizens and act as propaganda, making them harmful to state interests, ultimately it is their country and their rules, not yours, regardless of how much you disagree with it

you are also missing the elephant in the room, whatsapp's claim of end-to-end encryption is a lie

[chasil]

The actual text from the article implies that OS exploits compromised the device.

"The UAE government owns majority holdings in telecom companies Etisalat and Du. This gives security services the power to observe all communications on their networks.

"The Arab state has also used the Israeli-developed software Pegasus which allows agents to listen into private calls and read messages, even if they are shared on encrypted apps like WhatsApp,.

"The spyware can infect a device even without the user activating a link - such as via a WhatsApp call, even if it isn't answered.

"Once inside, it can access all WhatsApp messages, logos and contacts."

[ufmace]

I don't think that means anything as the author of the article almost certainly has no clue about anything but what the Government there told him. They're just quoting general knowledge and speculation by other equally-uninformed third parties.

[chasil]

Well, how would you a) obtain the incriminating photo, then b) determine that it had been transmitted?

An OS exploit and stat() for an atime would do it.

[netdur]

By asking Meta polity

[fc417fc802]

That only works if you assume that Meta is lying about the E2EE. But earlier you took this very event as evidence of that fact, hence it seems you're begging the question.

Someone else has pointed out that it isn't legal to offer E2EE services in the UAE and so Meta intentionally compromises it in that market one way or another. They don't seem to be hiding that fact though so it's hardly an elephant.

[chasil]

polity - a political organization

politely - courteous, socially correct, or refined manner

[alephnerd]

> you are also missing the elephant in the room, whatsapp's claim of end-to-end encryption is a lie

Not exactly.

E2E is illegal in the UAE, and Meta has only advertised E2E in countries where it can operate E2E freely.

All chat apps that operate in the UAE need to store data locally with full access given to the UAE's Telecom and Interior Ministries.

[fwn]

> E2E is illegal in the UAE, and Meta has only advertised E2E in countries where it can operate E2E freely.

From my experience, the no-advertisement claim is untrue. I've used WhatsApp with several users in the UAE. The end-to-end encryption notice appeared on my side (as always in user-to-user communication).

> All chat apps that operate in the UAE need to store data locally with full access given to the UAE's Telecom and Interior Ministries.

Do you have a source for that claim?

Compromised endpoints, monitoring accounts or unencrypted cloud backups are far more likely to be the source than hidden deals or large conspiracies where many people need to keep a secret.

[alephnerd]

> Do you have a source for that claim?

The UAE's Personal Data Protection Law (PDPL) passed in 2021.

Any internet service that is used by UAE residents has to store data domestically within UAE borders.

Assuming zero days are being used to enable mass surveillance is much more conspiratorially minded - once a zero day is used, it's often detected within days and patched.

[fwn]

But wait, you sourced the trivial part of your claim (a law exists), but not that WhatsApp breaks E2E. The encryption part is the important part, right?

I'm no expert in the UAEs data protection law, but I did not immediately find any reference for a mandate for government backdoor access to encrypted content.

Also: compromising endpoints obviously does not require zero-day exploits. Otherwise, I'd assume, the services of the surveillance industry (Pegasus, Cellebrite, etc.) would be far more expensive.

There is probably no large conspiracy where Meta breaks E2E for a government and nobody involved ever leaks it. The more traditional threat is probably service blocking where users get pushed to less secure alternatives that the government can more easily monitor, like Russias new government messenger.

[adjejmxbdjdn]

Group chats are openly not E2E encrypted.

Even personal chats are publicly not E2E encrypted.

There are other insidious ways you can publicly and openly end E2E encryption (I think backups might do that).

Essentially, while WhatsApp may not be lying their default 1 to 1 chats are E2E encrypted, it makes sense to use it as if it weren’t because it’s so easy to disable it even with their publicly disclosed information.

[Tepix]

Wrong. Both WhatsApp and Signal group chats are E2EE.

Telegram group chats are not. Even 1on1 chats aren‘t E2EE on Telegram by default.

Also, reporting is an issue: If a member of the group "Reports" a message to WhatsApp, a copy of the recent messages in that chat is decrypted and sent to WhatsApp for review to check for terms-of-service violations.

[littlestymaar]

> In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest

In peacetime, definitely. In war time, there's a necessary balance to be found between “information as public interest” and “providing free battle damage assessment” to an adversary.

I'm not saying I'm in favor of jailing people for pictures, but we cannot ignore the importance of intelligence in modern combat with ubiquitous precision weapons.

People have similarly been arrested for filming air defense at work in Ukraine, and again it makes sense because giving away key sensitive information for social network cred isn't something you want in a country suffering from a military aggression.

[infecto]

Honest question. The UAE is well known for very questionable imported labor. Do you think they or the people who live there care?

[stavros]

But how can they improve if they don't let the slaves criticise the state?!

[mdni007]

When did Americans care so much about the poor laborers from India? Honest question. The United States is well known for funding a genocide and protecting pedophiles. Do you think they or the people who live there care?

[infecto]

What does your commentary have anything to do with the thread?

I don’t think it matters one way or another what Americans think.

Edit: I see your post history and it makes sense now.

[mdni007]

I'm just tired of the hypocrisy

[andai]

>How can you improve if there is no dialogue

Didn't UAE have a phone line to the king that anyone can call?

Sounds like the cost of actually calling it may be higher than I thought though.

[andai]

I visited and asked a friend there if women can vote. She became very offended. What! Of course we can vote!!

10 seconds later

Hang on a minute. We have a king. Nobody can vote!

[duxup]

Sadly I think for those in power it doesn’t hurt them.

[HarHarVeryFunny]

> In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest and shared by the media

Perhaps, but increasingly not here in the US, which used to consider itself the leader of the "Free World".

Trump thinks nothing of declaring journalists terrorists and threatening to take away the broadcast licenses of TV stations that are embarrassing him.

It'd be nice if we could say this is just Trump, a bad president gone gaga, but the Republican party supports him, so unfortunately this authoritarian control of the media seems to be becoming normalized.

[aa_is_op]

This was posted inside a private group, so I doubt this applies. He should get a good lawyer.

[testing22321]

> In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest

I take it you’ve never driven past Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska.

Just stopping your car on the public highway or taking photos is a serious crime.

Imagine how much shit you’d be in if you took photos of smoke rising from it after a hit.