Syria's 'Twitter Jihad' -- Global Journalist - Media Unlimitedmedia-unlimited.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Syrias-Twitter-Jihad-Global...surgents-in-iraq-syria-using-social-media-to-re-!

(http://globaljournalist.org)

Social media is hardly immune from the fog ofwar.

For the first time in history, a full-blown conflictis playing out on social media.

Citizens on the scene and combatants them-selves are the driving force behind what theworld knows about the bloodbath in Syria thathas left more than 100,000 dead and millionson the run.

Since violence flared in March 2011, tens ofthousands of videos, photos, and eyewitnessaccounts have appeared on YouTube, Twitter,and other online platforms. When escalatingwarfare and rigid government restrictions side-lined the foreign press corps, social media filledthe void.

Reporter Deborah Richards of the AustralianBroadcast Corporation made an apt compari-son. While Vietnam went down in history as thefirst “television war,” the Syrian conflict has be-come “the first social media war – the Twitter ji-had,” she wrote in June (https://au.news.ya-hoo.com/a/24287315/the-twitter-jihad-isis-in-surgents-in-iraq-syria-using-social-media-to-re-

! This file image made from video and released by ShaamNews Network and accessed Thursday, Aug. 23, 2012, which is

consistent with other AP reporting, purports to show thefuneral of children in Daraya, near Damascus, Syria. Amid all

the bloodshed, confusion and deadlock of Syria's civil war,one fact is emerging after 2½ years - no conflict ever has been

covered this way. Amateur videographers - anyone with asmartphone, Internet access and an eagerness to get a

message out to the world _ have driven the world's outlook onthe war through YouTube, Twitter and other social media. (AP

Photo/Shaam News Network SNN via AP video, File)

SYRIA’S ‘TWITTER JIHAD’

Syria's 'Twitter Jihad' -- Global Journalist http://globaljournalist.org/2014/07/syrias-twitter-jihad/

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cruit-fighters-promote-violence). Richardsnoted that some combatants are tweeting asthey fight.

A study earlier this year by the United States In-stitute for Peace bears her out. Researchers de-scribed (http://www.usip.org/publications/syria-s-socially-mediated-civil-war) the Syrian war as“the most socially mediated civil conflict in his-tory” and concluded “social media have revolu-tionized the way that the world has understoodthe Syrian conflict.”

“During the first Gulf War, we talked about theCNN effect,” says Marc Lynch, director of the In-stitute for Middle East Studies at George Wash-ington University, and one of the study’s au-thors. “In Syria, social media are driving thenarrative.”

For traditional news outlets, the torrent of so-cial media sources inside Syria has been amixed blessing. Editors are faced with sortingout truth from the vicious propaganda gener-ated by all factions in the civil war. “This infor-mation could not be independently verified”has become the dictum du jour.

Case in point: A video clip on YouTube shows arebel commander bending over a dead SyrianArmy soldier, hacking into his chest with aknife. He reaches down and pulls out what ap-pears to be a lung.

Turning toward the camera, he says, “I swear,we will eat from your hearts and livers, youdogs of Bashar,” referring to loyalists of SyrianPresident Bashar al- Assad. He lifts the bloodylung to his mouth and bites into it.

Posted on a pro-government website in May oflast year, journalists had to determine: Was thevideo staged to paint rebels as savages or didthe barbarous act really occur? Answers are noteasy to come by.

For foreign correspondents and local journal-ists reporting from inside Syria has been a lo-gistical nightmare.


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(http://globaljournalist.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/AP606605223434.jpg)

This July 15, 2013, file image takenfrom leaked video obtained by UgaritNews purports to show a fireball froman explosion at a weapons depot setoff by rocket attacks that struck gov-ernment-held districts in the centralSyrian city of Homs. Never in history

has a war been covered in the waythat Syria s civil war has: A constantstream of hundreds of thousands ofvideos instantaneously bringing all

the viciousness, brutality and gore in-stantaneously and vividly to millions

of viewers across the globe viaYouTube and social media. (AP

Photo/Ugarit News via AP video)

For the second year in a row, the Committee toProtect Journalists has named (http://cpj.org/2014/03/syria-the-most-dangerous-place-for-journalists.php) Syria the deadliest spot inthe world for the media. Sixty-four journalistshave been killed and 80 kidnapped since thewar started. Around 30 remain missing, includ-ing American freelancer Austin Price. CPJ callsthe number of kidnappings “unprecedented.”

From the beginning, President Assad’s regimetook an iron-fisted approach, threatening andarresting local journalists and expelling foreign-ers. Visas were issued sparingly, and securityagents dogged those who did get in, restrictingthem to government-controlled areas.

Many journalists hired smugglers to guide themacross the border, carrying only what theycould jam into a backpack. Once inside, theyoperated covertly.

As conditions deteriorated, newsroom man-agers scaled back operations inside Syria, mov-ing personnel to Turkey, Lebanon and other re-gional hubs. News outlets were forced to relymore on second-hand and unverified informa-


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tion.

Magda Abu-Fadil, director of the Beirut-basedMedia Unlimited, calls reliance on social media“a double-edge sword.” “[Social media] helpprovide vital information that traditional mediahave been unable to obtain, but they also havemisused it to disseminate disinformation,” saysAbu-Fadil, a veteran journalist in the region.“One has to take it on a case-by–case basis.”

She points to safeguards, such as computerprograms that can detect fake photos andvideos, and to social media users who are alsoquick to call out misleading reports.

Sometimes, all it takes is a keen eye.

On Sept. 7, Reuters distributed photos by free-lancer Hamid Khatib of a 10-year old working ina munitions factory alongside his father for theFree Syrian Army in the town of Aleppo. Theheadline (https://nppa.org/news/reuters-de-nies-ethical-allegations-while-some-syria-photo-graphs-still-questioned) read: “Boy Rebel MakesWeapons.”

Donald Winslow, editor of News Photographer,the magazine of the National Press Photogra-phers Association, spotted obvious red flags.

“The captions bear no explanation about how a10-year-old child knows how to build mortarshells and repair artillery. Also, there are noother workers seen in the empty, dimly lit ware-house. If this is indeed a rebels’ munitions fac-tory there is no explanation of why a child isalone there, working and unsupervised,”Winslow wrote in a March column.

Reuters did not respond to his inquiries aboutvetting procedures. They refused to commenton whether Khatib still worked for them.Reuters issued a statement (http://www.bag-newsnotes.com/2014/03/were-reuters-boy-in-a-syrian-bomb-factory-photos-staged/#sthash.Ihf2fLn7.dpuf) saying they had thor-oughly investigated the claims “and establishedto our satisfaction that the pictures were notstaged.”


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(http://globaljournalist.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/AP427940449439.jpg)

This May 29, 2013 file image madefrom video posted by Shaam NewsNetwork, which is consistent with

other AP reporting, shows a Free Syr-ian Army fighter firing a rocket pro-pelled grenade in Aleppo, Syria, tar-

geting a Syrian regime stronghold. (APPhoto/Shaam News Network via AP

video)

In this case, the jury still is out. The film clip ofthe rebel leader biting into a lung was verifiedwhen TIME magazine tracked him down.

During a May 14 interview with TIME, Khalidal-Hamad, commander of the Omar al-FaroukBrigade, explained his actions. “We opened hiscell phone and I found a clip of a woman andher two daughters fully naked and he [the deadsoldier] was humiliating them, and sticking astick here and there,” Hamad told TIME(http://world.time.com/2013/05/14/we-will-slaughter-all-of-them-an-interview-with-the-man-behind-the-syrian-atrocity-video/).

“These 27 seconds of footage provide a glimpseat how brutal the Syrian war has become —and a startling example of how technology ap-pears to be fueling that brutality,” wrote AynBaker, TIME’s Middle East bureau chief.

Baker’s comment raised the questions: Whenterror groups self-promote by showing off theirslaughter, how much should be included innews reports? How does the principle of mini-mizing harm fit into the equation?

Reporter Stephen Marche faced that quandaryin a June 26 story for Esquire about the IslamicState of Iraq and Syria, known as ISIS.

Marche portrayed the black-clad militia as, “Anew, purer form of radical jihad — more terrify-


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ing and more evil than any brand the recentpast has seen. Nowhere is this clearer than inthe truly infernal propaganda they have re-cently distributed online.”

He described (http://www.esquire.com/blogs/news/isis-propaganda) ISIS’s latest onlinevideoas “virtually indistinguishable from snuff”and chose not to include a link in his story. In-stead, he focused on what the horrifying propa-ganda revealed about terrorists who leaveatrocities in their wake.

For better or for worse, cyberspace haschanged how the world is watching war. Thereis no going back.

Social media will remain an important point offirst contact, a way to gain access to the actionon the ground, says Middle East expert MarcLynch. What is playing out in Syria could be atemplate for future conflicts, especially in situa-tions where traditional news correspondentsare held at bay.

Writer Sherry Ricciardi is a media trainer in theMiddle East with the International Center for Jour-nalists.

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Syria's 'Twitter Jihad' -- Global Journalist - Media Unlimitedmedia-unlimited.info/wp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Syrias-Twitter-Jihad-Global...surgents-in-iraq-syria-using-social-media-to-re-!