The Kashaf platform traced the shift that took place in popular demands in Deir ez-Zor, where calls emerged for the dismissal of the governor and the holding of officials to account, against a background of disparity between daily hardship and the government efforts being made. Digital tracing shows that accounts and pages intervened to amplify those demands, turning their content from a service grievance into a call for confrontation.
The Beginning and the Substance of the Demands
Deir ez-Zor saw popular calls for the dismissal of the governor and the holding of officials to account, arising from a clear disparity between residents' daily hardship and the government efforts being made. In their origin these demands carried a direct service content relating to electricity, services and living conditions. Yet the path of their circulation did not remain within that frame, as the shift came through the intervention of accounts that amplified those demands and moved them into a different language.
Pages That Changed Their Names
The "Deir Ezzor Media Center" leads the incitement campaigns, and the page record shows a series of name changes: it was created on 10 September 2014 as "Qamishlo al-Hadath", then became "Qamishlo Media Center" on 23 September 2017, then "Rojava Media Center" on 14 November 2017, before taking its current name on 7 January 2018. The centre promotes a discourse of grievance aimed at undermining administrative stability.
Recycled Content
The "Al-Mijhar" page exploits humanitarian crises by tying them to direct political incitement, as in a post about the electricity cut to al-Tayana hospital in the eastern Deir ez-Zor countryside carrying the date 11 July 2025. The media figure Waheed Yazbek relies on misinformation through the recycling of content to accuse the government and inflame public opinion, and he is known for his support of and alignment with the deposed Assad regime, which makes recycling a tool that keeps an old event present as though it had just occurred.
Voices From Outside the Country
The Syrian activist Sfouk al-Sheikh, resident in Germany, uses his platforms to spread a divisive sectarian discourse, and adopts an inciting approach aimed at destabilisation and inflaming social tensions. He promotes internal confrontation and challenges the legitimacy of the government, while adopting positions supportive of the occupation. His location outside the country adds a further dimension, as the narrative about Deir ez-Zor is shaped from a distance far removed from the ground it describes.
Repurposing Protest for Other Agendas
The "Suwayda ANS" page, aligned with the al-Hijri militia, feeds social discord and adopts escalatory rhetoric to manufacture clashes between residents and the government. It uses livelihood demands as cover for suspect political agendas, as appears in its posts that carry protests from other areas and place them in a Deir ez-Zor context. The service grievance thereby becomes material available for repurposing outside its original place and outside its original timing.
Analytical Summary
Contradictory agendas intersect around undermining the stability of Deir ez-Zor, and humanitarian tragedies are exploited as a tool for tearing the social fabric. Popular confrontation is fed through systematic misinformation campaigns aimed at serving external political projects. What emerges from all these tracks is that what unites parties so distant in their rhetoric and their references is not agreement on a single narrative, but a convergence of purpose at one point: keeping the province in a permanent state of friction with its administrative surroundings.
