A Critical Analysis of Efforts to Combat Hate Speech and Disinformation in Syria

Introduction:

On October 6, 2026, the Syrian Media Academy—in partnership with the Ministry of Information and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)—launched a media campaign titled “Words Build” (Al-Kalima Tabni). The campaign aims to raise awareness about the dangers of hate speech, incitement, and misinformation, while promoting responsible practices regarding the dissemination and sharing of content.

This campaign is part of the project “Strengthening National Media Capacities to Counter Hate Speech and Build Peace in Syria.”
On the surface, the campaign appears to be a necessary national step during a highly sensitive transitional period. However, the question arises: is an awareness campaign sufficient to confront a phenomenon that has escalated to the point of claiming thousands of lives and has deeply permeated the fabric of Syrian society?
To answer this question, it is essential to examine the scale of the phenomenon, analyze its root causes, and evaluate the adequacy of the official response.

Scale of the Phenomenon:

1. Hate Speech:
   Between December 8, 2024, and 2026, the number of civilians killed in sectarian-motivated violence reached 4,140—including women and children. The majority of these casualties occurred during massacres on the Syrian coast and the events in As-Suwayda.
   The year 2025 alone recorded 1,201 killings—including 23 children and 41 women—resulting from targeted executions and acts of revenge.
   Regarding the attacks of March 6, the deaths of 1,683 civilians in the Syrian coastal region and mountainous areas were documented up to November 24, spanning 63 recorded massacres. These figures reveal the role of hate speech in fueling this violence, despite the efforts of reformers and many leaders of the transitional period. According to a report by the “Coalition of Women Journalists” issued in July 2026—based on an analysis of 64 documented cases from June 2026—40 cases involved sectarian hate speech targeting specific groups, while 25 cases involved speech directed against women (11 of which directly targeted women). Additionally, 17 cases contained direct or indirect incitement to violence.
2. Disinformation:
   Disinformation posed no less of a threat than hate speech.
   According to an investigative report by BBC Arabic published in May 2025, the team tracked over two million posts related to events in Syria following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime and analyzed a sample of more than 400,000 posts from the platform “X.”
   Upon examining 50,000 posts containing false or unverified claims against the new Syrian administration, it was found that 60% originated from accounts geolocated outside Syria—specifically in Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, and Iran. A study published by the Damascus Institute for Studies indicates that 14% of the discourse circulating in the Syrian digital space after December 2024 was violent and destructive. This discourse was categorized into polarizing rhetoric (38.9%), genocidal rhetoric (19.6%), hate speech inciting violence (15.8%), and incitement (7.9%).
3. Roots of the Phenomenon:
   Hate speech did not emerge in a vacuum; five decades of Assad regime rule fostered what might be termed a “culture of polarization,” wherein official discourse divided society into “loyalists” and “traitors.”
   This culture sowed the seeds of division within the collective consciousness, such that the hate speech observed after the regime’s fall represented an escalation of a long-standing legacy rather than a new phenomenon.
   A report by “Syrians for Truth and Justice,” published in May 2025, confirms that the “widespread dissemination of misinformation and conspiracy theories played a central role” in the massacres that occurred on the Syrian coast in March 2025. The report recommends that transitional authorities “expedite the enactment of clear legislation criminalizing hate speech and sectarian incitement.”

Evaluation of the “A Word Builds” Campaign:

1. Institutional Framework and Partnerships:
   The campaign is distinguished by a partnership involving the Syrian Media Academy, the Ministry of Information, and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
   This institutional framework lends legitimacy to the campaign and provides access to international expertise. The campaign targets all fourteen Syrian governorates through various channels, including social media, television, radio, the press, outdoor advertising, and text messaging.
2. Absence of a Legal Framework:
   The most significant shortcoming of the campaign is the lack of a binding legal framework; to date, there is no Syrian law criminalizing hate speech and sectarian incitement, even though “Syrians for Truth and Justice” recommended that the transitional government “expedite the enactment of clear legislation criminalizing hate speech and sectarian incitement.”
   An awareness campaign lacking a deterrent legal framework is akin to building a sand dam against a flood.
3. Is an Awareness Campaign Enough?
   To answer this question, one can look to the public health theory of “multi-level prevention,” which asserts that addressing complex phenomena requires interventions at three levels: primary prevention (preventing the phenomenon before it occurs), secondary prevention (early detection and rapid intervention), and tertiary prevention (addressing consequences and preventing recurrence).
   Applying this framework to hate speech, we find that the “Words Build” campaign represents only primary prevention (raising awareness). Meanwhile, Syria lacks secondary prevention (monitoring mechanisms and rapid intervention to prevent hate speech from escalating into violence) and tertiary prevention (holding perpetrators of hate crimes accountable, providing redress for victims, and rehabilitating affected communities). Towards an Integrated National Strategy:

Based on this analysis, the Syrian Future Movement recommends the following:

First: Enacting a law to criminalize hate speech and incitement. The People’s Assembly must expedite the passage of clear legislation that criminalizes hate speech as well as sectarian and regionalist incitement, while defining penalties, prosecution mechanisms, and safeguards for responsible freedom of expression.

Second: Establishing an independent national body to combat hate speech, comprising representatives from the government, civil society, and expert communities. This body would be tasked with monitoring hate speech, analyzing its trends, proposing policy recommendations, and supporting victims.

Third: Establishing a national early-warning system for hate speech, featuring teams specialized in digital content analysis and mechanisms for rapid intervention to prevent such speech from escalating into violence.

Fourth: Ensuring that civil society organizations are partners in the design, implementation, and monitoring of any such strategy. …a national [effort] to combat hate speech.
Fifth: Integrating media literacy into school curricula to empower new generations to distinguish between accurate and misleading information and to understand the dangers of hate speech.

Conclusion:

The “Words Build” campaign represents a step in the right direction, yet it is insufficient.
Hate speech in Syria is a structural legacy of authoritarianism, a weapon in a regional conflict, and fuel for violence that has claimed thousands of lives.
Confronting it requires a comprehensive national strategy that combines prevention (awareness-raising and education), deterrence (law and accountability), and redress (reparation and reconciliation).
Words may build, but they can also kill.
It is the right of Syrians—who have endured the ravages of war and division—to live in a public sphere where words are not used as weapons of hate, but rather as bridges for understanding and construction.

References:

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