Researchers Marc Owen Jones and Sohan Dsouza have uncovered a coordinated disinformation effort that weaponized unauthorized images of Catherine, Princess of Wales, to fuel anti-Muslim and anti-migrant sentiment in the United Kingdom. The campaign, which targeted voters before the 2024 general election and during the Southport riots, was described by academic researchers as the largest covert influence operation to target the UK by recorded ad spend and reach. Facebook pages involved in the effort spent more than £500,000 on advertising in the UK during 2024 alone.
The broader global operation, linked to actors in Israel, spent a minimum of $5 million on social media ads across more than 30 countries to promote the “Great Replacement” conspiracy theory and discredit Qatar. Between October 2023 and October 2026, the network generated an estimated 800 million impressions, using Google accounts registered in Brazil to target audiences in the US and Europe. While Jones stated there is moderate confidence that the campaign received state backing from Israel, he noted that the specific contracting relationships with private-sector firms remain unverified.
