Abstract
This chapter presents a case study based on the analysis of a disinformation campaign carried by the Syrian regime and its ally Russia against the search-and-rescue organization globally known as the White Helmets, who operate since 2014 in Syria’s rebel-held areas. This case study on the Syrian Civil War shows how rumors, conspiracy theories and other post-truth narratives in support of the Assad regime were given amplification by Russian media and via social media by a group of self-styled independent journalists and social media influencers, as well as by political bots and sock-puppet accounts. Such manipulative and propagandistic efforts found a receptive audience in Western countries, where social media users actively shared or co-created misleading or fictional narratives in a cultural and political context characterized by public opinion radicalization and polarization.
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Notes
- 1.
A sock-puppet account is a fake on-line identity created for purposes of deception and manipulation.
- 2.
According to most accounts, the uprising started with the peaceful protests of citizens against the arrest and torture of a group of adolescents who in March 2011 had spray-painted the walls of their school in the city of Daraa with graffiti invoking the demise of President Bashar Al Assad. The protests in Daraa, followed by similar rallies elsewhere in the country by large segments of the population, expressing discontent with government corruption and decades-old emergency laws, were met with forceful repression by the authorities. For a more detailed account of this episode, see Al Jazeera News. (2017). “The boy who started the Syrian war”. Al Jazeera. https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/specialseries/2017/02/boy-started-syrian-war-170208093451538.html.
- 3.
See the 2018 World Press Freedom Index https://rsf.org/en/ranking/2018.
- 4.
The Wall Street Journal defined the Syrian conflict as ‘the first war waged on YouTube.’ The video sharing platform claimed that only in the first year of war over one million videos were distributed. For more on this, see Kaylan, M. (2013). “Syrian conflict as seen through YouTube”. The Wall Street Journal. https://www.wsj.com/articles/syria8217s-war-viewed-almost-in-real-time-1380305826.
- 5.
It is worth pointing out that the harrowing images and videos of atrocities committed by rebels and Islamist fighters, circulated to attract support from the Gulf States, in some cases ended up harming the opposition cause, at least from a Western perspective (Lynch et al. 2014).
- 6.
In 2011, only one-fifth of the total Syrian population had Internet access (Trombetta 2012).
- 7.
Similar remarks are made in a report issued by the United States Institute of Peace, which detected a clustering into insular communities of like-minded Syrian activists and citizens, particularly on Twitter, without, however, taking the form of clear polarization but rather of a “complex web of multiple insular networks” (Lynch et al. 2014, 6).
- 8.
After 2012, the Assad regime gradually allowed Western journalists to visit the embattled areas, and a more complex reality about the war and its motives started to emerge. It became evident that the initial political objectives behind the uprising started to be supplanted by religious ones, as the conflict was becoming increasingly sectarian. It also became more difficult to unequivocally sustain the simplistic narrative of the first phase of the war, pitting a dictator against a peaceful uprising.
- 9.
One particular video showed a captive being beheaded with a chainsaw, with both fronts in the conflict accusing the enemy of committing the atrocity, while the footage was in fact originally taken five years prior in Mexico during an execution of a rival by a local drug lord.
- 10.
Shelton, T. (2012). “The most disturbing fake videos making the rounds in Syria”. Public Radio International. https://www.pri.org/stories/2012-11-12/most-disturbing-fake-videos-making-rounds-syria.
- 11.
Apps, P. (2012). “Disinformation flies in Syria’s growing cyber war”. Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-syria-crisis-hacking/disinformation-flies-in-syrias-growing-cyber-war-idUSBRE8760GI20120807.
- 12.
A famous example involved a Twitter account purporting to be that of a senior Russian official, suggesting that Assad had been murdered, which prompted the Russian Foreign Ministry to officially deny the information.
- 13.
Pomerantsev, P. (2014). “How Putin is reinventing warfare”. Foreign Policy. https://foreignpolicy.com/2014/05/05/how-putin-is-reinventing-warfare.
- 14.
Alami, M. (2018). “Russia disinformation campaign has changed how we see Syria”. Atlantic Council. http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/syriasource/russia-s-disinformation-campaign-has-changed-how-we-see-syria.
- 15.
According to a BBC report on pro-Assad influencers spreading disinformation on-line, Sarah Abdallah is presented as having “more than 125,000 followers, among them more than 250 journalists from mainstream media outlets. Her follower count is comparable to BBC journalists who regularly report on Syria. (…) She has almost no online presence or published stories or writing away from social media platforms”. BBC News. (2018). “The online activists pushing Syria conspiracy theories”. BBC. https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-43745629.
- 16.
It should be pointed out that prior to her support for the Assad regime, Beeley has publicly expressed her belief that 9/11 was not perpetrated by Al-Qaeda and that the Charlie Hebdo attack was staged. See York, C. (2018). “How an obscure british blogger became Russia’s key witness against the White Helmets”. HuffingtonPost. Available at http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/vanessa-beeley-syria-whitehelmets_uk_5ad9b6cae4b03c426dad48a9.
- 17.
Di Giovanni, J. (2018). “Why Assad and Russia target the White Helmets”. The New York Review of Books. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/16/why-assad-and-russia-target-the-white-helmets/.
- 18.
Hamad, S., & Oz, K. (2017). “Did a Kremlin pilgrimage cause AlterNet blogger’s damascene conversion?” Pulse. https://pulsemedia.org/2017/08/22/did-a-kremlin-pilgrimage-cause-alternet-bloggers-damascene-conversion/.
- 19.
- 20.
See Mackey, R. (2018). “Russia says it has ‘irrefutable evidence’ U.K. staged chemical attack in Syria. Let’s see it”. The Intercept. https://theintercept.com/2018/04/13/russia-says-irrefutable-evidence-chemical-attack-syria-staged-lets-see/; Palma, B. (2018). “Disinformation and conspiracy trolling in the wake of the Syrian chemical attack”. Snopes. https://www.snopes.com/news/2018/04/12/disinformation-conspiracy-trolling-syrian-chemical-attack/; Gillin, J. (2017). “Conspiracy claims that Syrian gas attack was ‘false flag’ are unproven”. Politifact. https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2017/apr/07/unproven-online-theories-doubting-syrian-gas-attac/.
- 21.
Putin, V. (2013). “A plea for caution from Russia”. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/12/opinion/putin-plea-for-caution-from-russia-on-syria.html.
- 22.
Nebehay, S. (2018). “U.N. documents further Syrian government use of banned chemical.” Reuters. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-warcrimes/u-n-documents-further-syrian-government-use-of-banned-chemical-weapons-idUSKCN1LS1JH.
- 23.
Al-Maghafi, N. (2018). “How chemical weapons have helped Assad”. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-45586903.
- 24.
Ross, B., et al. (2017). “Behind #SyriaHoax and the Russian propaganda onslaught”. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/International/analysts-identify-syriahoax-russian-fueled-propaganda/story?id=46787674.
- 25.
The nickname comes after the signature white headgear they wear.
- 26.
The sources of funding are disclosed by the group on their web site http://syriacivildefense.org.
- 27.
Di Giovanni, J. (2018). “Why Assad and Russia target the White Helmets”. The New York Review of Books. https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2018/10/16/why-assad-and-russia-target-the-white-helmets.
- 28.
According to an Atlantic Council Report “Between August 13th and December 31st, 2016, Russian News Agency Sputnik ran twenty-seven articles that mentioned the White Helmets. Of those, twenty-four were negative, two were neutral, and just one—a preview of the Nobel Peace Prize contenders—was positive” (Atlantic Council 2017, 59).
- 29.
As of 2019, over 200 White Helmets have died in their effort to provide humanitarian relief, despite being protected by International Humanitarian law.
- 30.
Vanessa Beeley has also been indicated by researchers as dominating the on-line conversation around the White Helmets, and while presenting herself as independent, her connection with the Kremlin has been widely documented. See Solon, O. (2017). “How Syria’s White Helmets became victims of an online propaganda machine”. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/dec/18/syria-white-helmets-conspiracy-theories.
- 31.
France 24. (2018). “White Helmets collaborating with terrorists? We sort fact from fiction (part 1)”. France 24. https://observers.france24.com/en/20180510-syria-white-helmets-terrorists-fact-fiction-islamic-state.
- 32.
Sputnik. (2016). “Russia registered US attack drone in area where Idlib school was attacked—MoD”. Sputnik. https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201610271046810904- idlib-school-russia.
- 33.
Worrall, P. (2016). “FactCheck: Eva Bartlett’s claims about Syrian children”. Channel 4 News. https://www.channel4.com/news/factcheck/factcheck-eva-bartletts-claims-about-syrian-children.
- 34.
It was this variegated group, similar to other on-line social formations peddling conspiracy theories as seen in Chapter 3, that pushed the #SyriaHoax hashtag to trending in 2017. See BBC News (2018).
- 35.
See Reid Ross, A. (2018). “How Assad’s war crimes bring far left and right together—Under Putin’s benevolent gaze”. Haaretz. https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/assad-s-war-crimes-bring-far-left-and-right-together-and-putin-smiles-1.6008713; Culthorpe, T. (2018). “Corbyn refuses to blame Assad for chemical attack in Syria”. Daily Mail Online. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5594765/Corbyn-refuses-blame-Assad-chemical-attack-Syria.html.
- 36.
Solon (2017).
- 37.
France 24 (2018).
- 38.
- 39.
Di Giovanni (2018).
- 40.
See DFRLab. (2018). “#BreakingSyria: Assad’s search engine optimization”. Medium. https://medium.com/dfrlab/breakingsyria-assads-search-engine-optimization-d16d7fc140f4.
- 41.
Freedland, J. (2018). “The great divide of our times is not left v right, but true v false”. The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/20/trump-us-syria-truth-tribal-robert-mueller-white-helmets-factse.
- 42.
Higgins, E. (2016). “There’s no such thing as a good fake—When publicity stunts go wrong”. Bellingcat. https://www.bellingcat.com/resources/articles/2016/11/30/theres-no-thing-good-fake-publicity-stunts-go-wrong/.
- 43.
Beeley, V. (2016). “WHITE HELMETS: The ‘Mannequin Challenge’, A publicity stunt that backfired? Vanessa Beeley talks to RT”. 21st Century Wire. https://21stcenturywire.com/2016/11/23/white-helmets-the-mannequin-challenge-a-publicity-stunt-that-backfired-vanessa-beeley-talks-to-rt/.
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Cosentino, G. (2020). Post-truth Politics in Syria: ‘Rumor Bombs’ on the White Helmets. In: Social Media and the Post-Truth World Order. Palgrave Pivot, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43005-4_4
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