Case Study 6.1: Tripped Up by Arabic Grammar Tom Trewinnard is the research and communications manager at Meedan1, a social technology nonprofit working on the Checkdesk project to develop collaborative verification tools online. He tweets at @Tom_El_Rumi2. M.SH. is a cofounder of the Shabab Souria (Syria Youth) News group, which he founded with friends after analyzing the dynamic between citizen media and mainstream reporting during the uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya in early 2011. Shabab Souria (Syria Youth) is a network of Syrians inside and outside Syria who collaborate using online tools to verify and publish on-the-ground updates from across Syria. Working as a closely administered open Facebook group, members crowdsource verification of the hundreds of reports that emerge daily from official media and social networks. They then publish the verified content in Arabic and English using Checkdesk. Checkdesk3 is an open source platform for newsrooms and media collectives to verify and publish digital media reports on breaking news events. Checkdesk was launched by Meedan in July 2013 with six leading Middle East media partners, all of whom have conducted a series of workshops within their communities to train citizens in media literacy, source awareness and digital verification techniques. A good example of how Shabab Souria works to debunk and verify reports occurred on December 5, 20134. A person going by the name Sham al-Orouba posted a YouTube video to the Shabab Souria Facebook group. In the video, a bearded man was identified as a member of the Seyoof al Islam Jihadist group claimed the group had carried out attacks against the Christian community of Saydna and the Deir Cherubim monastery. His narrative of the alleged attacks was interspersed with unclear clips apparently showing damage to a hilltop building and a statue of Jesus Christ. In submitting the video to the Shabab Souria network, Al-Orouba asked a simple question: “Confirmed or denied?” 76