“No drone has hit Dubai Marina,” wrote Isabel Oakeshott on X this weekend from her home in the UAE. “It was debris from a successful interception. Everyone is ok. I can see the building from my window and it’s fine and dandy.”
Phew! The Reform hacktivist, fiancée of Richard Tice and international editor for little-watched web channel Talk, was reassuring her followers after debris from an intercepted drone caused a fire on the top floor of Dubai’s 23 Marina tower (one man was killed by falling debris, but he was only a Pakistani driver, not a journalist with 370,000 X followers).
Suggested Reading
Isabel Oakeshott’s (very) Rough Guide to Dubai
But her post was oddly reminiscent of several almost identical ones appearing on Elon Musk’s platform at around the same time. Numerous Dubai-based accounts also posted the very same words “No drone has hit Dubai Marina. It was debris from a successful interception” at just after 7pm on March 7, including the city’s own media office.
Oakeshott is a doughty defender of free speech, citing Sir Keir’s own chilling crackdown on it at home among the reasons she was forced to flee Britain for the relative freedom of the Middle East (that, and the imposition of VAT on private school fees). Surely such an impartial hack would not be persuaded to re-post the exact words of an authoritarian government?
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