Case Study No.8: An Era of Violation against the Freedom of Press in Lebanon

The Samir Kassir Foundation (SKF) selects one case of violations against freedom of expression in Lebanon on a monthly basis and analyzes the reaction garnered on its own social media accounts. The aim is to understand our own social media audience's perception of our reporting and assess the general level of support for freedom of expression in Lebanon.

Our study focuses on a framework that investigates the position towards the victim of the violation, the presence of hate speech, and the visible political affiliation of the audience members, in addition to exploring a gender perspective, when available.

In November 2022, SKF chose to monitor the comment section of the Facebook post that launched the Report “An Era of Violation against the Freedom of Press.” This report was published following the end of Michel Aoun’s term as President of the Lebanese Republic, an event that steered heated political contestation all over the Lebanese Media, especially when reflecting on Aoun’s practices against the Lebanese Press. The report, written by Widad Jarbouh, identifies the most prominent violations against journalists, activists, and even ordinary citizens who were summoned and questioned for tweets, articles, or news posted on social media networks, news websites, or media outlets. The accusations included insulting and defaming the President of the Republic.

The report was published on the Facebook account of SKF’s SKeyes Center for Media and Cultural Freedom on November 1. The most relevant comments were analyzed during the first two weeks of November 2022. Below are the results:

Fig.1 - Position towards the report

Out of the 189 analyzed accounts, 78.3% (148) were against the content of the report, and most of them considered the content to be misleading. However, 19.6% (37) expressed that the content represented their views on the former president’s practices and expressed their frustration with the socio-economic situation the country had suffered from during Aoun’s term.

Fig.2 - Use of hate speech

Out of the 189 analyzed accounts, 28.6% (54) added comments that contained hate speech, while 87.9% (135) added comments that did not contain hate speech.

Fig.3 - Commenters’ visible political affiliation

Out of the 189 analyzed accounts, 28% (53) showed affiliations with the Free Patriotic Movement, while 6.3% (12) showed affiliations with Hezbollah. Moreover, 1.6% (3) of the accounts showed affiliation with the Future Movement, which is equal to the number of accounts that supported the Lebanese Forces. The Amal Movement and the SSNP accounts also shared an equal number of engaged accounts, which is 1.6% (1), leaving us with 61.45% (116) not portraying visible political affiliation.

Out of the 53 FPM-leaning accounts, all were against the content of the report, while 60.3% (32) of the comments posted by FPM supporters contained hate speech. As for Hezbollah, Amal Movement, and SSNP, all of their users had similar views to that of FPM users, while 25% (3) of Hezbollah users posted comments containing hate speech. Finally, all of the users linked to the Lebanese Forces and Future Movement supported the content of the report.

Fig.4 - Commenters’ visible gender

Out of the 189 analyzed accounts, 60.3% (114) were male and 38.6% (73) were female, whereas 1.1% (2) of the accounts didn't portray a visible gender. 61.1% (33) of the accounts that induced hate speech were from male contributors, whereas 37% (20) were from accounts that identified as female. Finally, one out of the two accounts that didn't portray a visible gender posted a comment containing hate speech.

This report was made possible through support from the UN Democracy Fund.