An Overview of Cyber Troop Activity in Lebanon Organizational Form Though the manipulation of social media is becoming increasingly prevalent in Lebanon, its sources and organizational form remain unclear and somewhat underdeveloped in comparison with neighboring countries. At this stage it is fairly difficult to track down the spread of misinformation to a particular organizational form. However, one origin that does stand out is Hezbollah, a militarized movement. The organization has many governance duties in Lebanon, is well-connected to foreign resources and operates an efficient media empire that it uses to disseminate its political messages and ideology around the world, and not just Lebanon (Atallah, 2019; Haaretz, 2019). The epicenter of this network is the Al-Manar Arabic-speaking satellite television station, with an estimated budget of USD $15 million, financed predominantly by foreign actors, most notably Iran. The organization’s media network is supplemented by radio stations, print publications, and dozens of websites in various languages (Clarke, 2017). Through these media channels Hezbollah also indirectly operates hundreds of social media accounts that promote the organization’s propaganda without it being explicitly obvious that Hezbollah is playing a coordinating role, an approach is vital given that since Hezbollah is classified as a terrorist organization in the US, and as such prohibited from being promoted on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter (Frenkel & Hubbard 2019). In an attempt to harness technology to spread its message, Al-Manar launched a smartphone application in 2012 that was dedicated to live streaming its content internationally. Four days after the app became available Apple withdraw it from its iTunes store, with Google following suit two days later by withdrawing the app from the Google Play store. Google’s Head of Communications for the MENA (Middle East and North Africa) region commented that “We remove applications the violate our policies, such as apps that are illegal or that promote hate speech” (Al Tamimi, 2012). Hezbollah also maintains partnerships with media organizations that are seemingly outside of its official network. This provides a means of circumventing scrutiny by social media moderators. One such example is the Attansakiyeh group, which operates news sites and an extensive social media presence on all platforms (Martinez, 2019). The Attansakiyeh group’s mission statement says it aims to counter distortions on social media that target the “Resistence”, and there is widespread evidence that Attansakiyeh has links to Hezbollah. The organization often posts pro-Hezbollah content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Telegram, and YouTube, including posts that glorify Hezbollah leaders and deceased Hezbollah figures (Ibid). In October 2016 the group partnered with Hezbollah’s media outlets to organize a gathering for MP Hassan Fadlallah. Attansakiyeh was also found to be conducting fundraising events and projects related to Hezbollah, such as the “Popular Campaign to Support Resistance and Confront the U.S Siege”, in which the money was donated to accounts that provide Hezbollah with funds. Other campaigns loosely affiliated with Attansakiyeh that were launched on social media in 2019 have included the #ResistenceChallenge campaign, which was intended to help boost financial support and donation to Hezbollah. The hashtag challenge went viral and was reposted by many supporters, with pictures of individuals donating money to the Islamic Resistance Support Association (Martinez, 2019) 240