9/10 people in the US don’t care about Dubai to begin with, let alone the slavery and other human rights abuses. They may have seen the vapid influencers that show off penthouse suites at staggering heights, or the $10k+ plane tickets, and go “alrighty then, anyways”.

I think that is the whole point: To keep the image of Dubai up as the land of luxury. If Dubai is just some place where the world’s favorite influencers party, then an indifferent foreigner isn’t going to look closer for any human rights problems, etc. “Sure, I’ve heard of Dubai. They make chocolate, right?” is better for the rulers than “Sure, I’ve heard of Dubai. They still have slaves, right?”.

Put another way: If most of the world doesn’t care about Dubai, then people are only going to know what the current culture tells them about it. Chocolate and Lamborghinis is a simpler story to keep in the culture than human rights abuses.

When my now-spouse and I were dating, we once got pretty drunk together at a party and started crying because we felt sad for the infinite number of parallel universe selves who never met.