ARIJ's Investigation "Cyberstorm" Named Finalist at the 2026 Global Fact-Checking Awards

ARIJ’s investigation “Cyberstorm: Petroleum Accounts Lead Disinformation Campaign on Climate Change,” by journalist Mohamed Tolba, reached the finals of the Global Fact-Checking Awards, securing a spot among the contenders in the “Gold Standard” category. This nomination places the work among the best global investigations competing across four main categories this year: Impact, Gold Standard, Collaboration, and Creative Formats.

A string of hashtags has appeared on social media platforms using disinformation and promoting conspiracy theories about climate change. This analysis of interaction with these hashtags shows that they were mainly promoted by accounts linked to oil interests in Gulf countries. It also showed that this interaction coincided with international and regional events related to the climate issues, and was at odds with the stated positions of these countries, which claim to abide by international climate agreements.