I am trying to get this blog kicking off. I don’t know if the things I said below make sense, but this is at least my impression on the mentioned topics.
Syrian Twitter
Twitter is rarely known inside Syria. It’s known here that most of the Syrian tweeps are tweeting from diaspora and not from Syria. I have noticed that most people, unfortunately, seek to see the Egyptian model applied on the rest of regional revolutions. But each country has its own interesting peculiarity.
In fact, and if you were following the revolution update right from the start, there has been a huge problem with getting real information out. That’s partly because Syrians online are not the same Syrians protesting offline. But that’s not always the case. For example, @AnonymousSyria and @EdwardeDark are both based in Aleppo. When there are unconfirmed reports published on twitter or Facebook on Aleppo, they’re the ones to usually confirm instantly whether the report is true or false. The case is the same in Homs with @Kinaniyat (even though he’s not in Homs) and with several tweeps based in Damascus. But with other areas like Daraa, Douma, Darayya, Idleb, Latakya, Hama and others, where electricity and communications are regularly cut, it’s hard to get the confirmation quickly and on twitter. One ought to call people by phone to confirm the rumors.
Several activists tried to solve this problem and created Local Coordination Committee. It was the most credible group on Facebook that gets the truth out, but recently its quality is not the same as before. There have been a few false reports and I think the problem is with the lack of volunteers and not dividing the work equally among all members. It’s nonetheless the best source of updates on Syria.
