The tweet I found was at the top of when I searched #Syria on twitter. The twitter user, Sarah Abdallah, is listed in her bio as an “independent Lebanese geopolitical commentator”. Her tweets covering Syria had discussed the lack of clear evidence of the recent chemical attack. What was interesting to me was how quickly the BBC picked up her speculative tweets, and tried to start a smear campaign against her. Her tweets were starkly realistic, in comparison to what a comment called the BBC’s “parrots terrorist and interventionist narratives in Syria”. Tweets like Abdallah’s have popped up all over the web, questioning how verifiable the so called chemical attack was. This is of course significant, because if these tweets questioning said attack have any merit, than they call into question what grounds the U.S., French, and British launched air strikes against Syria. Abdallah’s last tweet “they call us conspiracy theorists because we pose questions that most western journalists fail to ask and refuse to investigate #Syria” highlights one of the great strengths which social media provides: a different medium of truth seeking, potentially unsullied by the partisan biases of conventional new networks, like the aforementioned BBC. The tweet proceeding that discusses how reports by conventional big media networks are putting forth a “shoddy and deceptive narratives of mainstream platform”, which social media gurus like herself have set out to expose, again highlighting the positive aspect of the checks and balances effect that social media can

They call us “conspiracy theorists” because we pose the questions that most Western journalists fail to ask and refuse to investigate. #Syria

— Sarah Abdallah (@sahouraxo) April 19, 2018