dubai loves influencers and
influencers love dubai and they love it
so much
that some of the top international
players even move there
and with them comes the attention of
millions of followers
in 2020 with rather few coveted 19
restrictions in place
dubai became a popular destination for
influencers
trying to escape lockdowns in their home
countries
but the seemingly glamorous lifestyle
comes with a catch
they are not allowed to criticize their
new home dubai
in terms of coming across as western and
appalling
the the uae certainly wants to position
themselves as a destination attractive
for travel and
investment for westerners so the uae is
being seen as
is quite open until you actually then
you realize there are some lines
definitely don't want to cross dubai
presents itself as the number one
backdrop for influencer deals with
luxurious brands
i love the place and it gave me a very
strong career
it gave me a very good start which
which i would always be thankful uh you
know
for so for example me being an indian
influencer
if they want to target indians in
pakistani asians
then a lot of brands would want to work
with me
the sheer number of influencers even
prompted the united arab emirates to
introduce a media license
just for
what influencers to influencers apart
from just the destination itself and the
environment
is um that they've attracted some
massive brands from around the world
some of the largest companies
to base themselves in dubai or to at
least have
a major regional hub in dubai and that
makes them particularly attractive
because there are lots of commercial
opportunities for influencers to enter
into
and it also works out for the ua in
dubai itself because it really puts them
on the map
appearing safe modern and liberal is
beyond valuable for the gulf state
and many influencers feel at home here
although it's an arabic country uh
fortunately dubai particularly
uh do not have uh any kind of crazy
restrictions
uh which is great so they are quite
liberal i can say
and yet critics point out dubai ranks
very badly when it comes to press
freedom
influencers are expressly forbidden to
criticize
the emirates people cannot
talk negatively about the government
they can't talk negatively
about uh the weather or anything that
could be considered possibly negative
uh we also have instances where people
cannot even
share articles that are negative about
the uae
criticizing the state and its leaders
could land you in jail
as could kissing your partner in public
or the endorsement of equal rights for
the lgbtq plus
community in some cases people have even
been jailed for social media posts
they created years ago and in a
different country
if you're an influencer you go there and
you break the law
you cannot guarantee that you're going
to be treated
in a different way to everyone else you
could end up being free within
48 hours if you're lucky or you could
end up with 48 months in a dubai jail
for most influencers this risk seems far
away
in my experience i don't feel that
there's anything like that that you know
you'll be criticized or you'll be
detained or something of that sort
i have been living here like almost six
years till now i never
face any issues but as i mentioned
before
i was always careful what i'm saying
what i'm posting
everybody wants to go in sync with the
place nobody wants to be
out of the place like especially you
know with a place like dubai
human rights organizations have raised
serious questions about the monarchy
ruling dubai but those concerns are hard
to find on instagram
influencers their sponsors and the uae
all benefit from this gag rule
in a lot of cases the the financial
rewards would certainly outweigh some of
those ethical considerations so
there's been a lot of debate about this
in various contexts within the
influencer space and it's a
very very personal decision and it comes
back to that individual influences where
they draw that line