After over half a century of oppression under the Assad regime, on December 8, 2024, Syrians awoke to a new landscape of opportunities and challenges, both on the ground and online. As celebratory chants filled the main squares of Syrian cities, an undercurrent of hate speech and disinformation swelled on social media, leading to multiple violent events across the country.
Syria is a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic and a multi-religious society that not only endured over five decades of dictatorship but also suffered from almost 14 years of civil war that tore up the socio-political fabric of the country and mobilized different groups against each other. Today, Syria is a fragile and polarized post-war society; and it is extremely vulnerable and exposed to disinformation and hate speech campaigns.
According to Zouhir Al Shimale, a Syrian disinformation researcher, the main themes of disinformation campaigns are sectarianism, social division, attacking civil order, and trying to undermine the Syrian social cohesion. In December 2024, the torched Christmas Tree video spread like wildfire on social media over the holiday seasons in Syria amplifying religious tensions in the country inherited by Assad’s sectarian rule. Similarly, the recirculation of an old video depicting an attack on an Alawite shrine in Aleppo triggered protest and civil unrest in Damascus, Homs, Hama, and the coastal area of Syria.
In response, different religious representatives launched online solidarity campaigns all over the country, calling for forgiveness and restraint to defuse the tensions and find common ground for discussion and cooperation.
For example, the Greek Orthodox Church envoy to Syria, Fr. Spyridon Tanous, spoke to AlHurra about the need for restraint as the Christmas tree was restored within hours and the offenders prosecuted.
Three different types of hate speech campaigns aiming at mobilizing the already polarized society prevailed in stirring sectarian tension over the holidays. What are the different types of disinformation that have been employed in Syria over December?
Re-using Old Content
The deliberate and sensitive timing of planned recirculation of sensitive content online easily reignites sectarian unrest and becomes a significant threat. The old content deployed by this disinformation tactic includes both recent violations against minorities and sharing content that reminds Syrians of crimes committed by the Assad regime in the name of protecting minorities.
One of the most controversial examples during the holidays is a video circulating about an attack on an Alawite shrine, which triggered widespread protests and clashes with the caretaker government forces represented by their military operation units. Although the event took place on November 30, when Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) offensive took Aleppo, the video only went viral on December 25, particularly after the torched Christmas tree video spread widely causing protests in multiple cities.
The redeployment of older videos to reignite tension and sectarian unrest is still prevailing. Certain influencers on X have been circulating portions of older videos containing emotional speeches and calling for bearing arms in response to the torching of the Christmas tree.
Other viral accounts are recycling older content documenting atrocities committed by the Assad regime, targeting grief over fear to justify current violence against minorities in the new Syria. Other content is framing minorities responsible for Assad regime crimes and claiming sectarian-revenge as legitimate goal for justice in Syria. These two narratives, the fear-triggering and the revenge-avocation pose severe risks to the fragile socio-political transition, undermining hopes for a peaceful and inclusive future in Syria.
Targeted Disinformation Campaigns
Disinformation campaigns are exploiting the fears of Syria’s minority communities of systematic discrimination and ethnic cleansing. Some targeted messages are claiming minorities are preparing for a civil war. A network of accounts are relabeling criminal incidents from local news to portray the beginning of a civil war between different factions, fostering fear, division, and unrest.
Accounts like “Syrian Activists,” “Syrian Girl,” “La Liberté,” and “Mohammed Al-Jajeh,” among others, are potentially problematic accounts disseminating targeted hate-speech and disinformation. Although these accounts claim to be independent media observers, their content could create further tension, threatening a peaceful transition by claiming a civil-war has begun in the post-Assad Syria.
Similar to the previous regime, this account exploits the fear of minorities and manipulates local news to portray a picture of violence and systematic discrimination against minorities.
By manipulating local news and events, they craft a narrative that depicts systematic discrimination, violence, and even coordinated efforts at ethnic cleansing against these groups. For instance, posts targeting the Ismaili community amplify isolated criminal incidents, framing them as evidence of a broader agenda to marginalize and annihilate the group.
The main overarching narrative is using the start of a civil war. By weaponizing fear, these narratives legitimize bearing arms and indulging in religiously-driven violence which hinders efforts towards national unity and reconciliation.
Although Mohammed Al-Jajeh poses as a media observer, his content is preying on the deeply rooted fear of Alawites planted by the previous regime.
One of Jajeh’s recent posts claims there is a genocide attempt against Alwaties in Syria. This account utilizes the same text multiple times and connects it to almost every other violent event in the country to amplify the narrative of targeted campaigns against minorities.
To make matters worse, numerous self-claimed pro-revolution accounts, such as “La Liberté” are using the same dangerous narrative of an impending civil war, but with a reversed lens. These accounts report on criminal incidents or skirmishes involving the new authorities, framing Alawites or other minority groups as key conspirators in orchestrating violence, allegedly under the backing of Iran.
This narrative adds another layer of sectarian tension, positioning minorities as external agents or proxies in a grand scheme to destabilize the country further. Such framing not only reinforces division but also primes public perception against reconciliation by deepening mistrust among different factions.
These targeted messages collectively weave an overarching narrative of an inevitable civil war to mobilize different factions of Syrian society to serve their agenda. This is the same tactic the regime has used for decades to justify its sectarian and ruthless rule of the country.
Impersonation Campaigns
Impersonation campaigns exploit the naming and branding of official factions and groups to disseminate misinformation as reliable sources of news and information. These campaigns pose as legitimate sources promoting unverified and often inflammatory content to deepen the mistrust in the already unstable Syrian information ecosystem.
Examples of impersonation campaigns include Facebook pages mimicking official accounts, fake viral video of a military figure, and fake Russian news outlets.
Over ten different pages on Facebook emerged under the name “Directorate of Military Operations” (“إدارة العمليات العسكرية”) which is affiliated with HTS, the current de facto authorities running and regulating Syria’s transition.
It is quite challenging for a user to figure out which one of these pages is the official one, especially as this page is responsible for sharing the latest regulations and updates regarding the legal transition in the country.
After a quick examination, one of the accounts posing as an official page has been used previously as the Electronic Outlet of the Baath Party affiliated with the previous regime. This page mimics exactly the same tone and visuals from the main official pages. The page has over 47K followers and can utilize its new image to disseminate all kinds of disinformation about new regulation in the country, deepening the chaos during this transition.
Some campaigns impersonated military personnel. One video showed a man dressed in a military uniform claiming to be affiliated with HTS addressing a hateful and threatening speech to various minority communities in Syria. This video was later debunked by HTS. Although the video was quickly discredited, it went viral and contributed to spreading fear among Alawites, exacerbating existing fears.
Another example involves accounts posing as Russian news outlets, spreading content that claims factions within the Syrian society are plotting to annihilate the Alawite population, especially in the coastal area.
According to a Syrian community organizer in the coastal town of Latakia who preferred to remain anonymous, without a reliable source of information, people in his town “end up believing everything they see on their phones.”
Anyone can fall for disinformation campaigns, shedding light on the responsibility of social media platforms to fact-check and take down dangerous content. Yet recent policy changes have often exacerbated the problem.
For instance, X’s shift to monetizing the blue badge and restricting API access has unintentionally made it easier for disinformation accounts to gain credibility and harder for researchers to track their activities. In fact, the majority of the disinformation influencers accounts analyzed in this article have the verified blue badge.
The post-Assad era in Syria has unleashed a wave of disinformation campaigns that prey on the country’s fragile and polarized society. From the calculated redeployment of old content to targeted narratives exploiting the fears of minority communities, and impersonation campaigns planting mistrust in the digital information ecosystem, these tactics collectively threaten to derail Syria’s peaceful transition.
To counter these threats, independent media watchdog organizations are essential. Such entities can provide Syrians with reliable information, debunk harmful narratives, and help rebuild trust in public discourse.
Image by LOUAI BESHARA / AFP
Written by author Disinfo-Analyst