The Syrian Electronic Army is notable for its targets, which are Syrian and non-Syrian alike. Their campaign does not seem to much distinguish between opposition organizers within Syria and sympathetic groups or media outlets outside of it. The digital war isn't just against fellow Syrians, and it doesn't respect national borders. Whether the tools it uses are misdirection, annoyance, or outright attack, it has not hesitated in expanding its focus outside of Syria.

Perhaps most revealingly, the Syrian Electronic Army appears to consist of a number of normal civilians, rather than merely professional hackers or robots made to mimic real people. (There may well be professionals in the group's ranks, however, especially given the effectiveness of some DDoS attacks.) A random selection of the group's Facebook activists appeared to all have real accounts, and hundreds of pro-regime comments showed enough variation that they are unlikely to have been manufactured en masse, although the group's Facebook page does present several boilerplate messages as examples. Each comment, it appears, was individually crafted by someone who wanted to demonstrate their passionate support of Assad and condemnation of protesters. But even if the sentiment is authentic, the specific allegations are unlikely to be sincere. The regime's use of torture is widely known, for example; spreading fear is precisely the reason one runs a torture program in the first place.

Despite the skill of the Syrian Electronic Army, it is the group's mass of apparent volunteers that reveals the most about Syria's ongoing conflict. Reliable opinion polling is difficult, but some reporting from the country suggests that a significant minority of Syrians strongly support Assad; some of them, particularly young, tech-savvy men and women, would be in a position to help their government against online opposition activists. This gives Assad something that his counterparts in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya mostly lacked: a savvy, aggressive presence online. Such supporters are probably largely comprised of the Alawite sect of which Assad is a member, many of whom fear of reprisals should the regime collapse. But whoever they are and whatever their motivation, the Syrian Electronic Army can challenge activists online, one of the few remaining safe spaces for the country's besieged opposition movement.

*The post originally attributed ownership of the Facebook page to Columbia University. In an e-mail, Columbia University said the page has no affiliation with the school and they have no control over the contents. We regret this error.

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Max Fisher is a former writer and editor at The Atlantic.