Table 1: Organizational Form and Prevalence of Social Media Manipulation in Lebanon Initial Government Politicians Private Contractors Civil Society Citizens & Report Agencies & Parties Organizations Influencers Hezbollah Attansakiyeh, AlManar Source: Authors’ evaluations based on data collected. Blank spaces indicate no evidence was found. Strategies, Tools, and Techniques WhatsApp disinformation: Among the various social media platforms available, WhatsApp seems to be the popular tool of choice for the spread of misinformation, especially in light of the recent protests. According to experts the majority of disinformation being spread has two main goals: 1) the delegitimization of the protesters; and 2) the spreading of panic about dayto-day life in the country, with the intention of deterring citizens from taking to the streets (Lewis, 2019). A notable example is a message that rapidly spread via WhatsApp during the 2019 protests on October 30th. The message suggested that members of Hezbollah were going to shut down the entire country if the Lebanese Army did not ensure that the roadblocks of protestors were removed. This message was later claimed to be fake with a clear intention to amplify fear and force the government to clamp down on protests. Another message that was spread on the same day warned about a violent attack by government supporters: “Tell as many people as you can. The Khandaq people are gathering and it looks like they’re going to attack,”. Referring to people from Al-Kandhaq, a Shiite district of Beirut that is known as a district with ties to Hezbollah, who were vehemently opposed to the protests, and who had organized violence against the protesters (Lewis, 2019). Other messages that were circulated on WhatsApp included references to claims that the internet was going to be shut down, that the army was going to declare a state of emergency, and warnings that demonstrations were going to descend into violence. Misinformation: Official media outlets in the country are also susceptible to social media manipulation, providing an indication of its prevalence. One such example was a fake letter of resignation by Lebanon’s Minister of Interior, Raya Hassan. The letter went viral on Twitter, Facebook, and WhatsApp and was subsequently published in an article by CNN Arabic. Hassan soon clarified that the letter was fake, but the case indicates the vulnerability of even the most highly respected media outlets in the country (Tardaguila, 2019). Moments after the Beirut port explosion, videos of the events taken by residents began to circulate online. Whilst most of the videos merely captured the events, rumors about the cause of the blast also began to go viral (Spring, 2020). Initial rumors suggested that the blast took place at a firework factory. However, rumors quickly escalated to include claims that the event was caused by a nuclear bomb, because of the white mushroom-like cloud that was seen in the footage. This specific rumor was tweeted by a verified Twitter account with over 100,000 followers and gained thousands of shares and likes (Ibid). Even though weapons experts debunked the possibility of a nuclear bomb, stating that a nuclear blast would have been accompanied by a blinding white flash and a surge of heat, claims blaming the “nuclear bomb” on the US, Israel, and Hezbollah continued to spread. These claims were shared by various partisan web sites (Ibid). 241