For fourteen years, Syrians endured a brutal war waged by one of the most repressive police states of the modern era. Alongside the military conflict, an equally vicious digital war raged on social media. The Assad regime deployed not only missiles, barrel bombs, prisons, and forced displacement but also weaponized its media to obscure reality and distort events. From the revolution’s outbreak in 2011 until the regime’s collapse on December 8, 2024, the official narrative was framed around fighting “terrorism.” Allies echoed this line, casting Assad’s army and security apparatus as heroic defenders against a “global imperialist conspiracy,” while parading under the banner of the “Axis of Resistance” from Tehran to southern Lebanon.
Blood on Facebook’s Virtual Streets
Since its creation in 2004, Facebook has evolved into a global arena for communication and debate. In the Middle East, its rise coincided with the Arab Spring. In Syria, it became a battlefield. As protests erupted in 2011, Assad’s intelligence agencies unleashed vast online armies—derisively called “electronic flies”—to drown dissent in propaganda and harassment. With state funding and paid operatives, they flooded Facebook with disinformation, vilified activists, and attempted to intimidate opponents by posting videos of torture and bombings.
Fake accounts linked to regime loyalists and militias spread footage of killings and sectarian rhetoric, deepening divisions rather than quelling resistance. Over time, Facebook mirrored the disintegration of Syria’s social fabric: incitement, sectarianism, and psychological warfare played out in comment threads and hashtags as viciously as battles in the streets.
The consequences were profound for a generation of Syrians who grew up during the war. According to UNICEF (March 25, 2025), more than 75% of Syria’s 10.5 million children were born during the conflict. Over 40% of the country’s 20,000 schools remain shuttered, leaving 2.4 million children out of classrooms and another million at risk. Many were forced into grueling jobs, deprived of housing and healthcare, or drawn into the drug economy fostered by the regime.
This war-scarred generation, now aged 20–26, often carries its traumas into the digital realm. Platforms like TikTok and Facebook amplify their frustrations, producing hostile rhetoric toward perceived “virtual enemies.” Even academics and intellectuals contribute to the sectarian discourse, while rival factions smear one another as “ISIS remnants” or “separatists.” Online, hashtags themselves become weapons, awaiting what some mockingly call a “patent from Mark Zuckerberg.”
Post-Regime Facebook Battles
After Assad’s fall and flight to Moscow, Syrians coined the term takwi’ to ridicule regime loyalists who suddenly rebranded themselves as revolutionaries. Some justified past allegiance as coercion; others claimed long-hidden sympathy for the opposition. But can oppression ever truly compel endorsement of mass killing? Or are these shifts simply opportunism disguised as survival?
On Facebook, these tensions erupt into endless exchanges of insults, accusations, and threats. Pro-regime voices reframe themselves as victims, stoking fears of minority persecution, while opposition supporters accuse them of complicity in atrocities. Meanwhile, families scour mass graves and prisons for traces of disappeared relatives, their pain trivialized or denied in online debates.
The Missing Pillar of Justice
Some high-ranking regime figures have faced trial in Syrian courts, but countless war criminals remain untouched—some even integrated into the new state under the pretext of “civil peace.” For many victims’ families, this impunity is intolerable. Reports of revenge attacks in Aleppo, Damascus, Daraa, Latakia, and Deir ez-Zor now surface regularly on Facebook, fueling calls for personal vengeance in the absence of transitional justice.
The regime’s legacy of violence, division, and economic collapse weighs heavily on the interim government. Yet the pursuit of international recognition without domestic accountability risks sowing the seeds of future unrest.
The “battles” among Syrians—whether on the ground or across Facebook’s virtual frontlines—will persist unless transitional justice takes precedence. Accountability is the only path to healing. Prosecution of perpetrators, from the coastal massacres to the atrocities in Suweida, is not merely a legal necessity but a social and psychological one. Without it, the war’s end will remain an illusion, and peace in Syria will continue to slip further away.
This article was translated and edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
