Trolling DistrictS?

byHabib Battah
May 16, 2013

I thought something was strange yesterday when one “Maria Jamal” confidently alleged that I had “fabricated” Monday’s assault by DistrictS site staff. She repeated this three consecutive times on my Facebook page:

Interestingly, Ms. Jamal’s picture-less profile had been created the same day as her accusations against me, some of my friends on FB pointed out.

Not only that, but Maria Jamal’s curiously vague charge:

…was a verbatim copy (grammar problems and all)- of a tweet by Rasha Rteil, who works for a major PR company.

@monajem A drama fabricated story. He was allowed to enter & he misused it! I read the project is legit & archaeology is under preservation!
— Rasha Rteil (@RashaRteil) May 15, 2013

And yet the only person to retweet Rteil, was mysterious Maria Jamal herself.

Like her Facebook page, Maria Jamal’s twitter handle seems to have been created with a specific target in mind. The only person she follows is me.

So Maybe Rasha Rteil has long lost twin sister?

Either that or District S fans/family are pulling some pretty low-budget trolling, which is kind of surprising for a $250 million project.

I wonder if Ms. Rteil, who describes herself on LinkedIn as a “senior digital strategist” experienced in “result based online campaigns” can help.

UPDATE: 16/5/13

Hours after outing Maria Jamal in this post, her Facebook profile has magically disappeared.

When you click on her FB posts on my wall, her profile never loads.

Troll down.

Habib Battah

Habib Battah is an investigative journalist and founder of the news site beirutreport.com. Battah has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 15 years and teaches journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut. He is a contributor to Monocle, The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera and others, a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and two-time recipient of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award. Battah's investigative work was recently recognized for outstanding local reporting by the Columbia University Oakes Award for Environmental Reporting. Battah earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in Near East Studies and Journalism from New York University.

1 comment

Anonymous says:

May 16, 2013 at 7:02 am

LOLz

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Who Am I?

Habib Battah is an investigative journalist and founder of the news site beirutreport.com. Battah has covered Lebanon and the Middle East for over 15 years and teaches journalism and media studies at the American University of Beirut. He is a contributor to Monocle, The Guardian, BBC World, Al Jazeera and others, a former fellow at the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and two-time recipient of the Samir Kassir Press Freedom Award. Battah's investigative work was recently recognized for outstanding local reporting by the Columbia University Oakes Award for Environmental Reporting. Battah earned a B.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin and an M.A. in Near East Studies and Journalism from New York University.