176 Converting Resources to the Cause sources on the ground provided them with testimonials and information for use in their roles as broadcasters and representatives of the revolution. At the onset of the Libyan uprising, for example, activists began “calling up friends, calling up family, getting all of these [pieces of] information,” as M. of Enough Gaddafi! explained.1 Their allies also sought out sympathizers in the diaspora to help them smuggle out information. As Muhannad, an independent Syrian American activist from Southern California who had lived for part of his youth in Hama, affirmed, People were sending me videos of anything they can document, any kind of crime or shooting at a protest so they can clear it off their phone and I can upload it to social media. It would all go to YouTube. We’d also get phone calls: “can so-and-so send you this and that?” Because being caught with video recordings could be a matter of life and death, connections to persons like Muhannad provided the means for dissidents to smuggle out information as quickly and safely as possible using the Internet. In this way, transnational networks provided the infrastructure needed to engage in information wars (Keck and Sikkink 1998), refute regime propaganda, and attract favorable attention from outside media. Activists’ preexisting contacts also snowballed into a widened network of pro-revolution activists on the ground seeking to broadcast their plight. Referring to her colleague Omar in the Libya Youth Movement, Ayat recalled, “When things began, I called my cousins, Omar called his, we started asking people on Facebook for their contacts – whoever was willing to talk.” Having direct contacts with protesters and fighters on the ground was also important in establishing activists’ credibility and legitimacy. As referenced in Chapter 5, activists were keen to voice demands on behalf of the Arab Spring, but not to speak for the revolution or revolutionaries who were facing the greatest risks and costs of dissent. Abdulaziz Almashi, a doctoral student in London who became a full-time activist after the Assad regime cut off his scholarship, attested that they amplified revolutionaries’ demands by broadcasting their allies’ exact claims. On the outside, we must reflect what our people need on the inside of Syria. We have a connection with media activists in every single city in Syria via Skype or Facebook, and we are always in touch with them. We ask them, what do you exactly want? What message do you want us to deliver on the outside? So we take our instructions from them and deliver it to the public, the media. 1 Respondents perceived that Skype was a safer method of communication than speaking over the phone, because those using the phone from regime-controlled areas such as Tripoli had to speak in a kind of impromptu code. The platforms that became popularized and normalized in 2020 as a result of the global COVID-19 pandemic, such as Zoom, were not yet available. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781009272148 Published online by Cambridge University Press