Context is important. In this case, he actually has some pretty defensible reasons for using Facebook this way: active suppression of local independent journalists and low activity by independent Western journalists. My guess is his alternative to Facebook is probably some pro-Assad propaganda rag. As bad as Facebook is, that's worse.
Your reaction would be more appropriate for someone chose to rely on FB for news about the US or Western Europe.
As just one measure, FB themselves deleted over 3 Billion fake accounts between april and sept last year. These are accounts that provided a phone number for verification. The disinformation operations on that site are like nothing anyone has ever seen.
They're also responsible for things like extremely biased reporting against Myanmar (no reporting about Ang sang su kyis speech at the genocide tribunal except "she didn't say the word rohinga!"). It's no surprise that there's also a strong campaign by the OIC to slander Myanmar which is running concurrently
Facebook is probably a net-negative for Syrians all things considered. Your social network may know the truth of who is committing 98% of the crimes, who invited ISIS/terrorists into Syria, and who is responsible for a modern-day genocide (half a million people erased from existence so far), but unfortunately that's not the case for the vast majority of people.
After Syria is destroyed, the history books will ask: how did we allow that to happen? What happened to Never Again? Social media will be part of the answer. We are reduced to tears when watching a film about Rwanda, and merely confused when hearing about Syria. Dictators love it when you are confused, because truth is their greatest enemy. In a state of confusion, the truth is not fully resolved. Moral clarity is dead. The solution starts with caring strongly about this problem. Only then can we begin to address it.
I would be pleasantly surprised if we're not both downvoted. You have my solidarity. I know how hard it is for you to receive zero empathy, and sometimes even aggression, when speaking the truth of who slaughtered your people and deprived you of your country. Keep telling the truth regardless. Part of the problem (of confusion and jadedness) inadvertently originated in the tech industry, and part of the solution will come from the tech industry. It won't know or care about the issue until victims come forth and make the problem clear. The tech industry needs to hear your voice. Creating a tool that is, on net, an accessory to perpetrators of genocide and manipulators of the public, without fixing it, is very, very problematic. Separately, Youtube is deleting video evidence of the genocide (even though it said it doesn't mean to). Many of the posters of those videos are no longer alive, or not in a situation where they can raise a dispute with Youtube. That is perfectly legal, and almost noone knows or cares.
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FACEBOOK, GOOGLE, are you listening? A GENOCIDE is going on. Facebook, your platform is being leveraged by the perpetrators of genocide as a modern-day Pravda of epic proportions. Google/Youtube, you are continuing to delete critical video evidence of the genocide from your servers forever even though activists put you on notice. Help.
The UN was hamstrung by Russia and China's veto power.
No smaller power was willing to take on Russia in a proxy war.
Mass arbitrary execution - https://www.cnn.com/2017/02/07/middleeast/syria-executions-a...
Rape and sexual violence used for political means - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/03/16...
Deliberate Syrian & Russian Air Force targeting of hospitals and systematic erasure of medical personnel - https://www.amnesty.org/en/press-releases/2016/03/syrian-and...
Chemical weapons used to gas civilian neighborhoods, including many children, even after the supposed removal of the chemical weapon stockpile (which earned Obama praise and earned the OPCW a Nobel Prize):
- https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/09/06/u-n-commission-calls-ou...
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O5bM8kTOsOk (warning: disturbing footage of gassed kids)
Assad inviting terrorists into the country to use them to confuse the world, slander protesters, and obfuscate the genocide - https://www.thedailybeast.com/assad-henchman-heres-how-we-bu...
"Over 500,000 Syrians have been killed and 13 million Syrians have been forced from their homes in the worst humanitarian crisis since the World War II" - Holocaust Museum (emphasis added, that really means something coming from the Holocaust Museum) - https://www.ushmm.org/information/press/press-releases/museu...
and Assad/Russia want people to believe that "the alternative is worse." The alternative is self-rule by the sweet, generous, loving people of Syria. Somehow, a social media campaign has convinced the world otherwise. Saying that there is a worse alternative, when half a million Syrians were killed (and counting), is to reduce Syrians to subhumans. That is especially insulting given that the alternative is often cited as "ISIS," even though Assad is the one who invited ISIS into the country, and the primary victims of ISIS were Syrians.
Pravda is in our Facebook news feed, and that of our friends whom influence our opinions.
I think it’s important to distinguish between regular people on the one hand and politicians and bureaucrats on the other. I still have faith in a large section of humanity, which sees these atrocities and is outraged by them, but often feels powerless to stop them.
It is also available on the PBS Video app. It has a 99% on Rotten Tomatoes.
My FB feed is mostly depressing these days, as it is filled with images of (among other things) maimed and murdered children. I can see how avoiding that would probably make me happier and more productive, but FB also helps me stay up to date on amazing humanitarian work being done in liberated areas. I also feel that burying my head in the sand would be a betrayal of my fellow Syrians who have, and still are, sacrificing so that my children as well as theirs won’t have to fear state terrorism.