Promoting ISIL: Feeling the Wrath of Facebook Admins

Other than jihadis talking to eachother, it's not often that Yemenis discuss the intricacies of infighting between Syrian opposition groups. That infighting has been a huge topic as of late, most notably the clashes between Al-Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) with a number of groups under the Islamic Front - an umbrella organization of Islamist opposition fighting groups in Syria.

Today, however, we were witness to a fascinating interchange between diehard supporters of ISIL and an administrator from Syria's most popular revolutionary Facebook page. The exchange occurred on the Facebook page of Yemeni journalist Abdel Razaq Al-Jamal, who wrote a strongly-worded post praising ISIL and criticizing other opposition groups:

Post reads: "Al-Jazeera uses the term "Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant" and not "Da'esh", but the channel shows what happens in Syria in this way: The opposition is fighting the Syrian regime, ISIL is fighting the opposition. But in reality, ISIL is the one being fought by America, Saudi Arabia, Iran, and those nations' tools in Syria, and among those tools are factions of the opposition." ("Da'esh" is a dismissive acronym used for the group by its detractors, and sometimes by just normal observers). 

 

 

 

 

 

Needless to say, these are not exactly objective words. They are, however, pretty extreme... Al-Jamal is making a not-so-subtle verbal attack on the brigades of the Islamic Front, who have been battling ISIL forces for several weeks. Several Salafi-Jihadi groups fight under their umbrella, including Ahrar Al-Sham, whose leader was designated by Ayman Al-Zawahiri as one of Al-Qaeda's representatives in Syria. ISIL's recent vicious tactics against both fellow opposition groups and Syrian civilians led to criticism from the majority of hardcore idealogues of the Salafi-Jihadi world, including Abu Basir Al-Tartussi,  Mohamad Al-Maqdisi. All of this criticism has been highly visible, taking the form of public videos, open letters, and press statements. In fact, this very point is what Sara Al-Idlibi, the administrator of the Syrian Revolution page, brings up when responding to Al-Jamal:

Sara's comment: "Are the Al-Nusra Front, Ahrar Al-Sham, Jaysh Al-Islam, Lawa' Al-Tawhid, and Jaysh Al-Mujahideen [all Islamist, fairly radical fighting groups] all tools of America, if so, then who is on the right path then? Do Baghdadi and those with him think that they are solving everything? You are wrong Al-Jamal, and unfortunately Al-Qaeda's image had been distorted as a result of your support to the organization of Al-Baghdadi"

Interesting in Sara's comment is her use of the term "تنظيم البغدادي" or "organization of Al-Baghdadi", which indicates her refusal to address ISIL by it's somewhat dignified self-made name "Islamic State." These newer names for the group have been picking up steam online, especially since the recent infighting. Another name commonly seen is "Baghdadi's State" as compared to "Islamic State".  After getting some responses from ISIL supporters on Al-Jamal's page, Sara responds again:

Sara: "If, in your point of view, all Syrians who revolted against the regime prior to hearing of Baghdadi are collaborators/agents of 'Sahwas", criminals, and apostates, then what do you call Al-Zawahiri, Maqdisi, Abu Qatada, Al-Tarifi, and Qunaybi, etc. and others who criticized Baghdadi harshly - are they also apostates, have they also become 'Sahwas'? Please, think a little bit, it won't hurt you."     (Here, 'Sahwa' refers to Sahwa or Awakening councils formed by US troops in Iraq, made up of local Sunni tribes who allied with US forces to fight Al-Qaeda. Since that time, al-Qaeda sympathizers often label any native group who opposes them as 'Sahwas')

What's so fascinating about this whole exchange is that Al-Jamal usually never gets much blowback when discussing Al-Qaeda issues on his page (he usually mentions them in a subtly positive light). In this case, his overt praise for ISIL may have been stretching it a little bit... So much so that an actual administrator of Syria's most popular revolutionary Facebook page emerged to rebuke his supporters.

Woman's Sunglasses Expose Syrian Regime Propaganda

This one's from over a week ago, but it's good. We meant to post it then, but it's been a busy week.
Check out this still shot of a woman getting interviewed on Ad-Dunia channel, a pro-regime satellite propaganda channel:

We initially saw this photo on Hanein forums, where a user linked to an Al-Arabiya news story discussing the incident. Al-Arabiya, in turn, was alerted to the find by opposition users who discovered the reflection and posted it on Facebook.  We hadn't seen this particular interview, but we've seen many like it on Syria News and on Ad-Dunia channel.

In the brief interview, the woman noted that "Yes, the Syrian crisis has ended, the bloody scenes seen from the opposition and on Arab satellite channels are fake, the Syrian people are living in safety."
From the reflection on her glasses, you can see the numerous soldiers and armed men surrounding her car, making sure that she had the right answer to the "reporter's" questions.

More Syrian Facebook Action

As we noted in our last post, the polls used to name Friday protests on the Syrian revolution's facebook page are significant. So much so that people try to mobilize their own online networks to get the result that they want.

Amal Hanano, writing over at Foreign Policy, published an article today detailing the importance of the polls. The article is good, but it could be better. The author did an acceptable job of describing the online battle between secularists & Islamists for the name of Friday's protests, but she obviously didn't do any research to see what people were saying on social media platforms other than Facebook and Twitter. Hanano writes: 

Last week, before the Facebook polling closed for the name of the April 13 protests -- the day after the U.N. ceasefire deadline, the day in which solidarity was key -- one name was in the lead: the Friday of the Armies of Islam. Yet another divisive (and completely off message) choice. This time, however, peaceful activists were ready to take action and fight back in a battle for the Friday name.

On Wednesday, April 11, media activists on Facebook and Twitter began a campaign to "rock the vote" for Friday's name. They advocated the secular, inclusive choice, "A Revolution for all Syrians." It was an intense campaign. Usually around 8,000 votes are cast each week, but last week there were more than 30,000. It was as much a battle between Islamic sentiment and secular inclusiveness as it was a struggle between those dedicated to solely an armed resistance, and those who still valued the power of nonviolent activism.

If the author looked a little further, she would find that it wasn't a one sided campaign: Islamists were mobilizing their networks as well. They were doing it on forums and on Facebook. Some on Twittter even ignored the results of the poll, deciding to name the protests "Friday of the Armies of Islam" anyway, regardless of the fact that this name was defeated badly.



While the article does have its shortcomings, at the end of the day, we salute the author of this article for shedding light on the ongoing and dynamic significance of social media to the Arab revolutions.

Even Jihadists Use Facebook Polls

As we mentioned in Wednesday's post, there was some prime social media mobilization going on this week when it came down to naming Friday's protests in Syria. 

Early afternoon on Wednesday, one choice was winning:

جمعة جيش الاسلام: اغيثوا الشام (The Friday of 'Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria')

Now, one can interpret that name as they want. For example, maybe the name is referring to gulf countries like Qatar and Saudi Arabia who have aided the Free Syrian Army. Maybe it is a gesture to the conscious of the Muslim world in an effort to mobilize Muslims to action. 

We have discovered that among at least some Salafi-Jihadist types (i.e. supporters of Jibhat An-Nusra) that name held a different meaning. The name meant that Syrians would be protesting in support of militant, Islamic action against the regime. Proof of that can be found on Hanein, where one user started a thread begging people to vote for the "Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria" option:

كما تعلمون بأن تسمية الجمعة لها أثر نفسي كبير وصدى إعلامي واسع في خضم الأحداث الجسام التي نمر بهاوبعد أن كانت الفرق كبير بنسبة الاصوات إلى تسمية جيوش الإسلام اغيثوا الشام بدأ جمع بني علمان يحاولون أن يحرفوا البوصلة ليجروا الجمعة من بعدها الإسلاميفالرجاء ممن له حساب على الفيس بوك الدخول والتصويت لصالح التسمية الإسلامية

Translation:

["As you know, the naming of Fridays has a lot of influence and a big media echo because of the magnitude of the events that experiencing. There used to be a wide gap in the number of votes given to "Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria," but now the 'secularists' have started to get together and try to pervert the results to steal away the Islamic dimension of Friday. So please, to whoever has a Facebook account, go on and vote for the Islamic name."]

The guy's avatar:

- Another user replies "Thanks, I just voted"

- The author replies "Thanks for voting, I hope the other brothers will vote too, it's between two competing names, one Islamic and one secular. Voting closes in three hours."

-A 3rd user replies "Victory to the Armies of Islam. I just voted, God bless you."

-The author replies "May God give you life. The amount of users on this forum (if they all voted) could create a wide gap between the two. So don't give up on it brothers, and don't say the the name doesn't make any difference, because it does."

- A 4th user replies, stating that he voted as well. 

- The author thanks him, noting that "I'm waiting for the rest of the brothers to vote - the voting is getting close, we used to be winning by more than 2500 votes, and now it's less than 1300! It's important."

The stuff is happening in real time. About a half hour later, the author comes back: 

"The difference is less than 50 votes! Unfortunately, in half an hour the results will flip on us and Friday's protest will have some secular name!"

Then a few minutes later:

"It didn't even take half an hour. Now the secular name is winning. God help us. 

Posts on this thread: 9

Number of times the thread was viewed: 132

(i.e. look how many people read the thread, and only a few people posted to let us know they voted)

I'm sorry for all of my posts on the thread, but it gets to me that secularists are winning over Islam, even if it's just a Facebook victory. "

This guy is clearly disappointed. We are pretty happy though - what a great example of cross-platform social media mobilization...or, rather, attempted social media mobilization. 

The Syrian Revolution Facebook Page

For the first time, you can watch a political revolution play out online. That's what's happening with the Syrian revolution's facebook page, which serves as the primary outlet for the opposition movement. Every day features hundreds of new posts (sometimes even thousands), with videos, articles, cell-phone recordings of regime violence; this site has everything.

It's truly revolutionary (forgive the pun) in that with this revolution, the opposition is using social media as a weapon to respond to actions of the Syrian government. The government has its TV channels, radio stations, and websites. The opposition has none of those, therefore it uses social media to promote and distribute its message. The posting of videos of protests and the violent repression of the regime allows readers to watch the revolution as it's happening - truly fascinating.

While we've seen the Facebook page mentioned on other social media platforms before, today a friend pointed out a particularly dynamic example of the intersections that occur in Arabic social media, and how that interaction can change events on the ground.

Above is a poll issued by the page. The poll asks for readers to vote and choose the name of next Friday's demonstrations. It has become a tradition in Arab Spring revolutions, and especially in Syria, to name each Friday's demonstrations. With the Syrian revolution, that naming now takes place on its Facebook page.  The choices are (from top to bottom):

• جمعة ثورة لكل سوريين (The Friday of Revolution for All Syrians)
• جمعة سينتصر الدم على الرصاص (The Friday Where Blood Will Defeat Bullets)
• جمعة المجتمع الدولي يقتلنا (The Friday of 'The International Community is Killing Us')
• جمعة حسبنا الله و كفى (The Friday of 'God is our Protector, Enough')
• جمعة اوقفوا القتل (The Friday of 'Stop the Killing')
• جمعة جيش الاسلام: اغيثوا الشام (The Friday of 'Armies of Islam: Come Relieve Syria')
• جمعة قاوم فيداك الاعصار (The Friday of 'Resist, Your Hands are the Hurricane')
• جمعة تكالبت علينا الامم (The Friday of 'The UN Has Left Us')

What's fascinating about this week's poll is the that readers took to other social media platforms (in this case, forums) to lobby for their particular choice. 

More info, with links, to come.