Social Media Reporting and the Syrian Civil War

The lack of traditional reporting and verifiable journalistic reports about the ongoing conflict in Syria has led to an increased dependence on social media as a source of news. But assessing the veracity of these reports has proven extremely difficult, creating consistent distortions of Syria’s on-the-ground reality.

The large amounts of social media data emerging from conflict zones like Syria and new data analysis tools have the potential to help overcome these distortions. Despite this enthusiasm, a number of conceptual and practical hurdles remain before these tools can create reliable predictive models of conflict dynamics.

This Peace Brief is based on an experts’ meeting co-hosted by USIP’s Center of Innovation for Science, Technology & Peace building. The workshop used the ongoing conflict in Syria as a focal point to discuss the increasingly prevalent distortions in social media reports emerging from conflict zones. The meeting examined how new data flows and analytical tools can be used to address these issues.