How disinformation intensified Syria's weekend of violence

"They're burning the village now," one Syrian user reported on Facebook.

"Which village?" another asked.

"Please, we want the shooting to stop so we can bury the bodies that are filling up the streets," somebody else from Jableh, a town near the coastal city of Latakia, where the violence that killed about 800 people over the weekend apparently began.

"I am in Jableh. Nothing is wrong. There's no shooting," another man wrote, adding to the confusion.

After supporters of ousted President Bashar Assad launched attacks on the new Syrian security forces late last week, Syria saw its worst wave of violence since Assad's fall in early December.

By Monday, the situation had mostly calmed. But the weekend also marked Syria's worst wave of disinformation since early December, say researchers at Syrian fact-checking organization Verify-Sy.

"We observed a significant surge," Zouhir al-Shimale, a researcher and communications manager for Verify-Sy, told DW. "Coordination among malicious online actors reached its highest level since Syria's liberation."

Over the past week, "disinformation was closely linked to real-life coordination on the ground," al-Shimale said. "In chat rooms and private direct messages, malicious actors urged Alawites (a minority of which many call the Syrian coast home) and other minorities to flee, warning of an imminent genocide while encouraging men to take up arms and attack government posts."

Verify-Sy also noticed increasing use of generative artificial intelligence to manipulate footage and alter voices to produce "highly provocative and graphic content."

Some of the pictures and videos posted of war crimes and killings were real. But some were historic and showed Assad regime forces committing war crimes, as pointed out by Syrians who recognized them from the first time they'd seen them. Some posts mourning murdered locals were genuine. In others, individuals pronounced murdered turned up online later, denying they were dead and in some cases, saying they weren't even in Syria.

Why was it so bad?

The disinformation around Syria is overwhelming for various reasons.

In Syria, social media "serves as a crucial information source amid the absence of formal or reliable, independent media," explains Noura Aljizawi, a Syrian activist and senior researcher at the University of Toronto's Citizen Lab.

Aljizawi, whose specialty is the intersection of technology and human rights, also points to a "lack of official communication from the interim government, which leaves the community grappling with uncertainty and vulnerability."

There are also conflicting viewpoints from different Syrian communities. Pro-Assad locals have used disinformation to widen sectarian divisions and urge their community not to reconcile with the new Syrian government. But as one activist pointed out, many former revolutionaries also want so fervently to believe in the new government that some were quick to argue news of crimes committed by the new Syrian security forces must all be "fake."

The Syrian government has since said it will set up an independent commission to investigate potential war crimes by any parties and made two arrests.

"The surge in disinformation and hate speech online is both fueling the violence and deepening divisions," Razan Rashidi, director of UK-based advocacy organization, The Syria Campaign, told DW.

"Disinformation has become so bad that the truth is lost and denial of crimes becomes commonplace. People are afraid to speak in solidarity with victims or to challenge the interim government for fear of the backlash they will receive on social media. This is deeply worrying and so dangerous at a time when communities should be coming together."

Foreign interference

Additionally, disinformation is also being used by external actors pursuing their own agendas, mostly against the new Syrian government.

Both Aljizawi and Verify-Sy have noticed Iran and Iranian proxy networks in places like Iraq and Lebanon playing a role. The new Syrian government has pushed Iranian forces that supported the Assad regime out of the country.

Russia and Israel have also played a part in disinformation campaigns against the new government, the experts say. And right-wing commentators in the US have used social media to promote Islamophobic opinions, accusing the new Syrian government, headed by individuals with past links to Islamist extremism, of war crimes.

"This was evident when figures like Elon Musk and [US pundit] Tucker Carlson amplified outright disinformation about Syria, leveraging X's network to promote these narratives," al-Shimale adds.

That's new and dangerous, he notes. "Amplification by high-profile figures and coordinated networks means it [disinformation] shapes public discourse, pressures policymakers, and influences international perceptions of Syria's transition."

Sectarian disinfomation from Iraq

DW messaged several users on social media who portrayed themselves as non-Syrian and posted information that was later debunked. Only one, whose profile said they were based in southern Iraq, responded.

The social media user was happy to share information if they could remain anonymous and told DW they were working under instructions from the media operations room run by what are known as Iraq's Popular Mobilization Forces, or PMF. These are militias originally formed by Shiite Muslim communities in Iraq to fight the extremist group known as the "Islamic State" but now part of Iraq's state security and government. Some groups within the PMF are well known for closer contacts with Iran and are considered part of the same Iran-supported axis as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

"They give me the posts, and I publish," the social media user told DW. "I trust my leadership very much, and they are the ones who verify the news," the person explained, adding they're paid between $20 and $30 for their online posts.

"Most of those who work in this field are unemployed, or disabled as a result of fighting, or women whose husbands died in the war," the person continued. According to the user, what Iraqi social media operatives are paid differs depending on, for example, which languages they can post in, and their reach with some well-known influencers getting over $100 for a post.

The operatives are working for money, but the Iraq-based X user admitted there is also a political aspect to the job. A Shiite Muslim, they said they consider all Sunni Muslims, including those in Syria, to be their enemy and a foe of Shiite-majority Iran, "which is the savior of this region," the user said. 

The person also justified their work by arguing another point, which is also false, that the new Syrian government is close to Israel, the US and Europe, all of whom they see as Iran's enemies.

The person admitted the profile picture on the account was not real, and DW was unable to fully verify the person's identity. However, their answers track with previous investigations into the proliferation of content paid for by political interests in Iraq.

Edited by: Davis VanOpdorp