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Observatory Report Reveals Public Opinion Manipulation Attempts About the Coastal Situation
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Cyber warfare and electronic disinformation pose a major challenge to international efforts to document facts and hold those responsible for violations in the Syrian coast accountable
A well-informed source at the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights revealed the involvement of cyber security groups based in an Arab country in attempts to distort information related to events in the Syrian coast, through launching systematic campaigns to obstruct international reactions and obscure documented evidence.
According to sources, these groups relied on elaborate plans that included fact distortion and electronic attacks, in direct coordination with authorities in Syria.
One of the cyber teams launched a large-scale campaign across social media platforms, broadcasting millions of misleading tweets and posts, using various methods, including confusing the media landscape by publishing conflicting narratives about who was responsible for the events, which confused global media outlets and hindered identifying those involved.
The campaigns also included organized targeting of accounts that publish documents and testimonies documenting the facts, through hacks and threats that widely affected the Observatory and its director, Rami Abdulrahman, in addition to inflaming sectarian tensions to divert attention from the core events toward side conflicts.
These operations were not merely an individual initiative, as the source revealed close cooperation between these groups and the authorities in Damascus, which provided them with logistical support and significant funding, making electronic disinformation a parallel media arm to its propaganda machine. This alliance enabled the distortion of facts in the digital space, just as occurs in traditional media.
The cyber campaigns achieved their results in an alarming manner, as the international response slowed down due to doubting the credibility of narratives about the events, and distorting the digital archive by mixing real evidence with fake ones, which hindered documentation and accountability efforts.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confronted these campaigns through accurate documentation of the facts, recording numerous cases against civilians on March 7, alongside collecting videos and recordings showing the involvement of elements in events that occurred in coastal cities, such as Baniyas and rural Latakia.
Additionally, the Observatory communicated directly with affected families and published their testimonies through international media platforms, which helped expose misleading narratives and reveal the facts, and helped prevent more unfortunate events.
The Observatory appealed to the international community and Syrian authorities to conduct an independent international investigation with the involvement of experts and specialists, to exclude the current investigation committee that includes members who denied or justified previous incidents, and to hold those responsible accountable, before impunity turns into a signal encouraging more violations.
