It boasted that almost half of SY24’s followers were women, “a remarkably high ratio for Syria-focused platforms.”Ĭarefully cultivating an entirely misleading image of an inclusive, credible ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition was of paramount importance to British inelligence. Global Strategy also established a dedicated centre for training female journalists to produce content for SY24 in Idlib, “accessing stories that male journalists cannot,” which were then shared on social media. SY24 content was produced by a network of ‘stringers’ in Syria that Global Strategy trained and provided with equipment, including “cameras and video editing software.” The firm drew particular attention to a team of female journalists it had tutored, “who provide about 40 percent of all SY content,” and were part of “a broad ‘network of networks’” enabling the company “to drive stories into the mainstream.” In July 2019, an image of two young Syrian girls trapped in rubble in opposition-occupied Idlib attempting to haul their sister to safety as she dangled off the precipice of a dilapidated building, their father looking on in horror above, spread far and wide on social media. While corporate news outlets hurried to forget all about the hoax they’d so comprehensively fallen for, their appetite for dubious human interest stories emanating from the crisis evidently wasn’t diminished. Six days later, it was revealed ‘Amina’ was in fact Tom MacMaster, a US citizen residing in Scotland. In response, numerous Facebook pages were set up calling for Amina’s release and ‘liked’ by tens of thousands, #FreeAmina trended widely on Twitter, journalists and rights groups begged Western governments to demand her release, and the US State Department announced it was investigating her disappearance. In June 2011, Amina’s cousin announced on the blog Amina had been kidnapped by three armed men in the Syrian capital. Widely hailed for her “fearless” and “inspiring” eyewitness reporting, the author was lauded as a symbol of the “progressive” revolution erupting in the country. Roughly a year after that CIA memo was authored, Gay Girl in Damascus, a blog purportedly written by Syrian-American lesbian Amina Arraf, garnered significant mainstream attention.
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