alt Hacker News> 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?
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>In most of the world such photos would be deemed of public interest and shared
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...
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.
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.
> 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).
> 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...
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.
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
Honest question. The UAE is well known for very questionable imported labor. Do you think they or the people who live there care?
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.
>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.
The UAE is a bunch of absolute monarchies. You are applying the processes of a democracy to hereditary absolute monarchies.
Sadly I think for those in power it doesn’t hurt them.
> 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.
> 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.
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.
This was posted inside a private group, so I doubt this applies. He should get a good lawyer.
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.