Did the Syrian Revolution Have Popular Support?

by William Van Wagenen | Aug 3, 2022

In the mainstream view, the armed groups fighting the Syrian government since 2011, collectively known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), were part of a Syrian revolution that represented the Syrian people. At the same time, the Syrian government, or Assad regime, allegedly represented only a small number of loyalists, in particular from President Assad’s minority Alawite community. Such a view undergirded demands by Western and Gulf-funded think tank scholars, who claimed that the Syrian people wished for FSA groups to be armed, and even for Western military intervention on behalf of the FSA, whose fighters they sympathetically described as rebels.

Did the Syrian Revolution Have Popular Support?

Attack on Syria church gathering kills 2

Two people were killed and 12 injured Sunday by bombardment of a church as it was being inaugurated in Syria’s central province of Hama, the official SANA news agency reported.

Sunday’s attack came two days after bombardment killed seven people including four children in the rebel-held Idlib region.

Around half of Idlib province as well as parts of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces are controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the former franchise in Syria of al-Qaeda.

Attack on Syria church gathering kills 2

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Meet the Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy + Social Media Is a Tool of the CIA

It is an uncomfortable job for anyone trying to draw the line between “harmful content and protecting freedom of speech. It’s a balance”, Aaron says. In this official Facebook video, Aaron identifies himself as the manager of “the team that writes the rules for Facebook”, determining “what is acceptable and what is not.” Thus, he and his team effectively decide what content the platform’s 2.9 billion active users see and what they don’t see.

Meet the Ex-CIA Agents Deciding Facebook’s Content Policy

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[2011] Social Media Is a Tool of the CIA. Seriously.

Google is already helping the government write, and rewrite, history. Here, from its transparency report, are some stats on the amount of information it has either given to the government or wiped from the web based on requests by U.S. agencies:

US Government requests to remove content from Google Transparency Report