{"id":7195,"date":"2011-09-14T10:17:39","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T14:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/news\/?p=7195"},"modified":"2011-09-14T10:18:16","modified_gmt":"2011-09-14T14:18:16","slug":"jerusalem-post-syrian-rebels-poke-fun-on-youtube-rally-support-on-twitter-facebook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/jerusalem-post-syrian-rebels-poke-fun-on-youtube-rally-support-on-twitter-facebook","title":{"rendered":"Jerusalem Post: Syrian rebels poke fun on YouTube, rally support on Twitter, Facebook"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Technology is defying censorship in Syria as rebels mock their tenacious dictator on YouTube and summon crowds into the streets using Twitter, Facebook and other local social media.<\/p>\n<p>On YouTube, an Arabic-language\u00a0cartoon shows\u00a0Syria&#8217;s President Bashar al-Assad picking up the phone and dialing to his friend, Iran&#8217;s President\u00a0Mahmoud Ahmadinejad &#8212;\u00a0Syria\u2019s most important supporter.<\/p>\n<iframe title=\"Wikisham | People&#039;s Palace | Languages | Episode - 1\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/r-4rBn2cVsA?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<p>&#8220;The people are revolting against me, they don&#8217;t love me anymore,&#8221; a nervous al-Assad\u00a0complains Ahmadinejad.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Don&#8217;t worry, crying won&#8217;t help. I have a solution \u2013 get on a plane and come here,&#8221; replies the Iranian.<\/p>\n<p>Taken to a cave in a black limousine in Iran, al-Assad meets glowering, mumbling\u00a0Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, who advises him to surround the cities with troops and artillery, suppress individual freedoms,\u00a0forbid people\u00a0to gather in\u00a0the streets and, above all,\u00a0stop the populace\u00a0from speaking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cTerrorism in revolution is critical and lying is it basis,\u201d the cross-legged ayatollah instructs him.<\/p>\n<p>Delighted, al-Assad gushes his agreement.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes, absolutely,&#8221; he declares,\u00a0&#8220;Lie and lie until you believe your own lies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Dissidents in Syria and elsewhere in the Arab Spring world are finding new and creative ways to poke fun at their leaders \u2013 and unlike their predecessors who were reliant on the printed media, they face far fewer risks because the content is sitting on a server far away from the despot\u2019s reach, notes David E. Miller in the <em>Jerusalem Post<\/em> newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Most observers acknowledge social media have played a critical role in bringing people onto the streets, but YouTube offers them an opportunity to become more creative and expansive in the way a 140-character Tweet cannot,&#8221; notes Miller, who writes for the middle eastern news service the Media Line:\u00a0<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>As the Arab Spring marks its ninth month, that has become an increasing important element in the fight against oppressive governments.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Facebook and Twitter are strongly linked to the Arab Spring, but YouTube has been a less significant social media platform,&#8221; Andre Oboler, an Australian social media expert, told The Media Line. &#8220;YouTube content requires significantly more time and effort to produce, which means it is less immediate, less fast paced, and there are fewer people able to do it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The risk of recognition in a video clip may have also deterred many Arab oppositionists from using the site, he says.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Even in democratic states YouTube videos are used by police to identify suspects. We&#8217;ve seen this recently with the London protests,&#8221; he says. &#8220;In authoritarian regimes, the punishment may be far higher and the grounds for arrest far less reasonable.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The danger of engaging in humorous criticism was amply illustrated when veteran Syrian cartoonist and outspoken Al-Assad critic Ali Ferzat was badly beaten by unknown assailants on August 25, left bleeding on the side of a Damascus road. The anonymous assailants made sure to injure his hands, telling him it was \u201cjust a warning.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Over 2,200 Syrians have reportedly been killed since unrest broke out in March, according to the United Nations.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.jpost.com\/MiddleEast\/Article.aspx?id=236909\" target=\"_blank\">CLICK HERE to read more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Technology is defying censorship in Syria as rebels mock their tenacious dictator on YouTube and summon crowds into the streets using Twitter, Facebook and other local social media. On YouTube, an Arabic-language\u00a0cartoon shows\u00a0Syria&#8217;s President Bashar al-Assad picking up the phone and dialing to his friend, Iran&#8217;s President\u00a0Mahmoud Ahmadinejad &#8212;\u00a0Syria\u2019s most important supporter. &#8220;The people are&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":270,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[976],"tags":[149,2248,1300,200,201],"class_list":["post-7195","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-speech","tag-facebook","tag-free-speech","tag-syria","tag-twitter","tag-youtube"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jerusalem Post: Syrian rebels poke fun on YouTube, rally support on Twitter, Facebook<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/jerusalem-post-syrian-rebels-poke-fun-on-youtube-rally-support-on-twitter-facebook\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jerusalem Post: Syrian rebels poke fun on YouTube, rally support on Twitter, Facebook\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Technology is defying censorship in Syria as rebels mock their tenacious dictator on YouTube and summon crowds into the streets using Twitter, Facebook and other local social media. 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On YouTube, an Arabic-language\u00a0cartoon shows\u00a0Syria&#8217;s President Bashar al-Assad picking up the phone and dialing to his friend, Iran&#8217;s President\u00a0Mahmoud Ahmadinejad &#8212;\u00a0Syria\u2019s most important supporter. &#8220;The people are&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/jerusalem-post-syrian-rebels-poke-fun-on-youtube-rally-support-on-twitter-facebook","og_site_name":"Beliefnet News","article_published_time":"2011-09-14T14:17:39+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-09-14T14:18:16+00:00","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/jerusalem-post-syrian-rebels-poke-fun-on-youtube-rally-support-on-twitter-facebook","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/jerusalem-post-syrian-rebels-poke-fun-on-youtube-rally-support-on-twitter-facebook","name":"Jerusalem Post: Syrian rebels poke fun on YouTube, rally support on Twitter, Facebook","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-09-14T14:17:39+00:00","dateModified":"2011-09-14T14:18:16+00:00","author":{"@id":""},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/jerusalem-post-syrian-rebels-poke-fun-on-youtube-rally-support-on-twitter-facebook#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/jerusalem-post-syrian-rebels-poke-fun-on-youtube-rally-support-on-twitter-facebook"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/2011\/09\/jerusalem-post-syrian-rebels-poke-fun-on-youtube-rally-support-on-twitter-facebook#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Jerusalem Post: Syrian rebels poke fun on YouTube, rally support on Twitter, Facebook"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/","name":"Beliefnet News","description":"Top Religious News From Around the World","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/author"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7195","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/270"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7195"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7195\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7200,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7195\/revisions\/7200"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7195"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7195"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7195"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}