In English, AJ+ is a "woke" news brand for digital consumers, with a strong focus on the US market. It has a progressive slant, with a focus on race, identity politics and islamophobia. In Arabic, the same network is a little different... and the Internet is starting to notice the discrepancy.
{"preview_thumbnail":"https://cdn.flowplayer.com/6684a05f-6468-4ecd-87d5-a748773282a3/i/v-i-c…","video_id":"c01edb3a-35a6-41f8-b955-ca8e270f91ea","player_id":"8ca46225-42a2-4245-9c20-7850ae937431","provider":"flowplayer","video":"UK Agrees to Sell Saudi Arabia Arms Worth $14.7 Million"}
In one article, AJ Arabic asks "What is the truth of the #Holocaust and how did the Zionist movement benefit from it?" This article was subsequently deleted by Al Jazeera.
On AJ+ English, a similar caption reads "This Holocaust survivor retells the horror of "What can happen when good people don't do anything." Same network, quite a different tone.
Arabic content versus English content ??♀️ pic.twitter.com/Ag8T95nEVK
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) May 18, 2019
Of course in the Middle East, bloggers and netizens have been creating memes about AJ+ vs. AJ Arabic for some time - the two channels are famously schizophrenic, to put it politely. This article however, was a particularly egregious example.
1/2 Holocaust Denial on Al-Jazeera Network: Israel Is Biggest Winner from Holocaust; It Uses the Same Justification to Annihilate the Palestinians (Thread...) pic.twitter.com/y8eJxXdZy8
— MEMRI (@MEMRIReports) May 19, 2019
Increasingly, western bloggers - particularly those on the right - are starting to notice too, with tweets often comparing Qatar's human rights record with the social justice messaging of its English language news service.
