Syrian Archive Documents Content Taken Down on Monthly Basis

The Syrian Archive’s mantra is to keep history alive by keeping  data safe and secure permanently. We archive, verify, and analyze thousands of pieces of online content from different social media platforms , and build datasets of archived content. Since the Syrian Archive was founded in 2014 we have witnessed  large amounts of data have been taken down by the policies of social media platforms. 

Many human rights defenders all over the world regularly notice that their content is removed, but few have a way to track these removals. This makes it difficult to demonstrate the true scope of the problem and to advocate for better content moderation tools and policies. That’s why in 2017 we started tracking content takedowns by checking the availability of relevant digital records we have archived against what is still available online. 

As of 05/10/2022, At least 121760 tweets are no longer available online, on Youtube, 431252 videos are also no longer available.

The Syrian Archive has 1683 twitter accounts in its database, 208 of those are removed. While from Youtube channels 4174 are found in the database yet 394 of those no longer exist online.

Human rights organizations, journalists, United Nations bodies and accountability mechanisms all depend on online data in their investigations of human rights violations and international crimes especially at a time where on ground access in Syria is limited. Social media documentation of human rights violations is critical for justice and accountability efforts, and sometimes this documentation might offer the only evidence that a crime has been committed. 

Get in touch if you or your media organisation has been affected by content takedowns on YouTube or other social media platforms or need assistance in securely archiving open source materials at info@syrianarchive.org