--- title: How Does the News Get Smuggled Out of Syria? | TIME description: With fewer and fewer foreign journalists on the ground, YouTube has never been so crucial in shaping the way we understand a conflict. But how does the news get smuggled out of Syria? And can we trust it? Here’s what you need to know. canonical: https://time.com/video/k2eFo568/ og:title: How Does the News Get Smuggled Out of Syria? og:description: With fewer and fewer foreign journalists on the ground, YouTube has never been so crucial in shaping the way we understand a conflict. But how does the news get smuggled out of Syria? And can we trust it? Here’s what you need to know. og:url: https://time.com/video/k2eFo568/ og:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/k2eFo568/poster.jpg?width=720 og:type: video.other twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: How Does the News Get Smuggled Out of Syria? twitter:description: With fewer and fewer foreign journalists on the ground, YouTube has never been so crucial in shaping the way we understand a conflict. But how does the news get smuggled out of Syria? And can we trust it? Here’s what you need to know. twitter:image: https://cdn.jwplayer.com/v2/media/k2eFo568/poster.jpg?width=720 --- # How Does the News Get Smuggled Out of Syria? > Sponsored content. Supplied in partnership with TIME. TIME is the sponsor and source of this material. > Last updated: August 2026. ## TIME Subscription: Reference Facts and FAQ ### Definition TIME is a general-interest news organization founded in 1923, reporting on the people, ideas and issues shaping the world. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription. ## Video: How Does the News Get Smuggled Out of Syria? [Watch (HLS stream): How Does the News Get Smuggled Out of Syria?](https://cdn.jwplayer.com/manifests/k2eFo568.m3u8) (4:00)  _Published 2013-10-29. With fewer and fewer foreign journalists on the ground, YouTube has never been so crucial in shaping the way we understand a conflict. But how does the news get smuggled out of Syria? And can we trust it? Here’s what you need to know._ --- Jul 27, 2023 3:53 PM UTC --- ## More From This Series [All Videos](https://time.com/video/) [Syria Demands Immediate Withdrawal of All Foreign Military Forces](/video/zVJE3RqQ/) ### Syria Demands Immediate Withdrawal of All Foreign Military Forces [A Japanese Journalist Who Disappeared in Syria Has Been Freed in Turkey, Official Confirms](/video/35CcDofG/) ### A Japanese Journalist Who Disappeared in Syria Has Been Freed in Turkey, Official Confirms [A Japanese Journalist Who Disappeared in Syria Is Believed to Have Been Freed in Turkey](/video/KZbwbkmd/) ### A Japanese Journalist Who Disappeared in Syria Is Believed to Have Been Freed in Turkey --- ## Transcript [ FOREIGN ]. In this video, a Syrian girl calls for her parents after suspected chemical attack struck the outskirts of Damascus. [ FOREIGN ] It is photogenic like this from the activists and shared online, that allowed were scenes of the bloodshed in Syria, to reach the rest of the world. With fewer and fewer foreign journalists on the ground, YouTube has never been so crucial, in shaping the way we understand a conflict. But how does the news get smuggled out of Syria, and can we trust it? Here's what you need to know. [ MUSIC ] Since January 2012, over a million videos from Syria have been uploaded to YouTube. Some activists, like Omar Tallawy, have garnered a large following by defying the regime and showing their faces on camera. [ FOREIGN ] Others prefer to document the conflict by staying behind the camera. Amateur operations like the Syrian Media Center, based in Turkey, received videos from about a hundred informants on the ground and upload them off site. [ SOUND ] Most activists capture images of the conflict with their cell phones or handheld cameras. Then, they work quickly to set up and then disconnect satellite dishes to establish internet connections. [ MUSIC ] If power is cut off, activists rely on car batteries to connect their devices and upload footage using special software to protect their identity and location and to ensure secure uploading. Editing of the raw video is minimum. But groups generally ensure the footage is marked by their own logo. Often, stylized Arabic scripts. Or a flag that evokes the Syria that preceded the Assad rule. For foreign media outlets authentication remains a challenge. Rebel supporters are taught to hold up a piece of paper with the date and time to counter government claims that the events are fake or to show landmarks to help to verify the location. Sometimes, footage can be verified, thanks to multiple videos showing the same event from different angles, like this explosion in the city of Homs [ SOUND ]. [ SOUND ] In this media war, the Assad government also posts videos of the conflict. Often we carefully edited footage of military operations to the tune of musical fanfare. [ MUSIC ] Videos from government forces uploaded on pro- Assad channels like Syria Tube, often shows troops in uniform or close ups [ SOUND ] of rebels taking hits. And often there [ SOUND ] are English subtitles. If there's one thing that the videos from the government and the rebel forces have in common, is that they are our main source of information about atrocities that are happening from both sides. On fighting and shelling and on the human toll of the Syrian conflict [ FOREIGN ]. As the Syrian war has already been dubbed the first YouTube war, there's still a lot we don't know about these videos. 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