Activists in race to save digital trace of Syrian war

BEIRUT: From videos of deadly air strikes to Jihadist takeovers, Al-Mutez Billah’s YouTube page served as a digital archive of the Syrian war until automated takedown software in 2017 erased it permanently.

The page exhibiting footage that violated YouTube’s community standards could not be restored because Al-Mutez Billah, a citizen-journalist, had been executed by the Islamic State group three years earlier over his documentation efforts.

"It’s not just videos that have been deleted, it’s an entire archive of our life," said Sarmad Jilane, a Syrian activist and close friend of Al-Mutez Billah, who was killed at the age of 21. "Effectively, it feels like a part of our visual memory has been erased."

The Google-owned YouTube platform has deleted hundreds of thousands of videos uploaded by Syrian activists since it introduced automated software in 2017 to detect and delete objectionable content, including violent or graphic videos.

It is not the only social media giant relying on artificial intelligence takedowns, but the platform is home to the majority of Syria war footage, making it an even bigger blow. The videos showing regime bombardments, executions by jihadists and chemical attacks had served as a vital window into a conflict which has remained largely off limits to journalists and investigators and was captured mostly by the people living it.

With the war entering its 11th year, there is growing concern that digital evidence of history’s most documented conflict is being syphoned away by the internet’s indiscriminate trash can.