How Syrian digital space became an active field for sectarian and gender based violence in 2025

Research conducted by SEEN for Civil Peace, a Syrian civil society organisation, in collaboration with CIR, examined the complex interactions of hostile dynamics during the critical transitional phase, following the collapse of the Syrian regime in late 2024. This research is the first of its kind in Syria.

According to The UN Syria Commission, acts that may constitute war crimes were committed in coastal and west-central Syria in early March 2025. The violence, which primarily targeted Alawi communities, culminated in massacres and included murder, torture, and inhumane treatment of the dead. Neighbourhoods were devastated by widespread looting and burning of homes, resulting in the displacement of tens of thousands of civilians. However, the violence did not only occur on the ground. Research by SEEN for Civil Peace, in collaboration with CIR, indicates a clear correlation between escalating rhetoric and mobilisation online and the surge of violence offline, highlighting the role of digital spaces in amplifying and accelerating real-world conflict.

SEEN analysed over 200,000 posts on Telegram and Facebook from five accounts of prominent Syrian activists and activist networks, each with an average follower count between 25,000 to 691,000. The accounts were selected based on the criteria of impact, continuity, and mobilisation capacity. They represent various factions across the conflict map, allowing for the study of hate speech as a phenomenon that crosses political divides. The accounts analysed included:

• Zeno Yasser Al-Mahameed Network (Telegram)
• The SNA “Syrian News Activists” Network (Facebook)
• The Alawite Mountains Network (Telegram)
• Omar Al-Talawi (Facebook)
• Wahid Yazbek (Facebook)

 Based on the collected data, SEEN constructed a specialised semantic lexicon to account for local Syrian dialects and novel linguistic codifications emerging in 2025. This lexicon was instrumental in finding a clear temporal correlation between the escalation of hate speech and the occurrence of sectarian massacres in 2025. 

In August 2025, UN experts sounded the alarm over a wave of armed attacks on Syrian Druze communities in and around As-Suwayda Governorate that occurred from 13 July 2025 onwards, with reports of killings, enforced disappearances, abductions, looting, destruction of property, and sexual and gender-based violence against women and girls. During the events, views on one channel surpassed 173 million, with more than 80 hate-speech posts recorded daily at the peak of the escalation.

Content produced by the analysed accounts was found to be amplified by traditional media. For example, television channels broadcast videos including the logo of Zeno Yasser Al-Mahameed’s Telegram channel, indicating a direct reliance on content originating from these online sources. This reliance risks granting a degree of perceived legitimacy of hate speech that is embedded within these videos, which thereby facilitates its wider dissemination and international reach. 

The research further identified patterns suggesting an implicit alignment to unify the inflammatory language across platforms. Notably, the SNA Facebook page appeared to function as a central source of the violent terminology, as terms posted by the page were picked up by other platforms, such as the Zeno Al-Mahameed channel.

Within one network, 5,031 out of 24,764 posts examined (approximately 20%) contained explicit hate speech. Techniques of dehumanisation, sectarian stigmatisation, and historical reframing were found throughout the networks, appearing to function in order to justify violations and construct targeted groups as acceptable objects of violence within collective narratives.

The analysis also identified a pattern of technology facilitated gender based violence, targeting female activists, journalists, and human rights defenders. This pattern runs parallel to sectarian and ethnic targeting. Overall, these channels and pages no longer function as traditional news outlets, rather they act as infrastructures for collective incitement. The danger of these accounts lies in their ability to frame events; news is not transmitted as neutral information but is charged with exclusionary connotations that may steer public behaviour. 

The study provides an analytical and methodological framework for developing preventative policies and early warning tools, rigorously linking discursive analysis with legal accountability. This contributes to curbing the reproduction of violence in its various forms within the Syrian context and similar conflict environments.