Legend says that Echo was a talkative nymph, so the goddess Hera punished her by depriving her of the ability to speak freely, so she became only able to repeat the last words that others heard. This is the state of our environment with “Hezbollah,” as one repeats what this party dictates, so that it becomes difficult, or rather impossible, to deviate from its script, otherwise one is punished as Echo was punished, whose body vanished until she became just an echo.
In her book “Secondhand Time: The End of the Red Man,” Svetlana Alexievich makes us live through the fall of the Soviet Union and see the wonder in the similarity of the fates of peoples, as she says that communism created a unique human model, the Soviet man (homo sovieticus), a tragic figure with its own heroes, pains, and shared lexicon.
Perhaps Hezbollah, too, has attempted to invent its own human model, the Khomeini-esque human being. However, to add some complexity, this human being might not be Shia, might be an LGBTQ+ activist, or a feminist advocating for freedoms, etc., with their own heroes, their own suffering, and their own diverse stances toward death.
If anyone tries to break free from this person’s influence, they will be bombarded with cyberattacks, given that in our era, the era of trends and clicks, the greatest weapon comes from within the internet and extends to include your real life, reaching into your home.
Here we are talking about both opponents and supporters of Hezbollah. We are talking from the heart of the Shiite community itself, from the experiences of displaced Shiites who lost their homes and lands, from those forcibly displaced and refugees fleeing. We are digging up their stories that were silenced by the dominant voice: the voice of victory.
On the eve of Hezbollah launching six missiles at Israel last March, southern families were displaced again, and Lebanese platforms followed the conditions of the displaced, especially since this scene has become very frequent since the battle to support Gaza, which the party decided to wage, away from the Lebanese state and its decisions.
The “Manateq.net” platform reported the story of a female farmer from Aitaroun, in which she expressed what she suffers and what she wants. This was considered unusual by those who appointed themselves guardians of silencing all voices that deviate from the narrative of victory and steadfastness, and the expressions that have become widespread recently, such as: “Victory is coming,” “We are all ready to sacrifice ourselves for the resistance,” etc.
Many supporters launched a fierce online campaign against her, so much so that the journalist who was covering the story had to return to her the next day to check on her psychological state. The displaced woman responded: “What happened? What did I say to deserve all this attack?”
We are talking here about the simplicity of southern farmers, and by this I do not mean their political naiveté, quite the opposite. These farmers and peasants live in peripheral areas that are not reached by the Lebanese state with its services, its economy, or even its corruption.
They did not adhere to the principle of citizenship in its modern sense, nor did they learn these concepts and their application as Lebanon entered the era of the modern (and, of course, failed) state. They saw in Hezbollah their sole hero, who brought them to power through its religious slogans and a complex system of shadow economy that it provided for them.
However, its impact remained limited in one fundamental aspect, perhaps because their primary allegiance remained to the land above all else. That land, which constituted their livelihood and life, the place where they wanted to live and die—can we then say that this farming is opposed to Hezbollah? Or supportive of it?
When we asked Zuhair Al-Dibs, head of the “Manatiq.net” platform, which covers and focuses on issues in peripheral regions, whether he had noticed a recurring pattern in targeting dissenting voices, he replied that “targeting dissenting voices, if we want to describe them as such, is not new. It is based on a monolithic discourse that does not accept any other opinion and makes it the opposite of itself, even if it is an obvious question, a different description, or an analysis that contradicts, at the very least, the prevailing discourse.”
He added that “this characteristic is linked to ideological parties, including religious ones, and it is not a product of the moment, but rather decades of mobilization that aligns with slogans of victory, heroism, and steadfastness. Therefore, targeting any dissenting voice falls within this context, which has been deeply rooted for many years, under the same titles that monopolize the vision, the slogan, and the solution,” as he put it.
Polarization is increasing, and emotions are becoming intertwined with political loyalties. As the philosopher Slavoj Žižek once said, we have entered the age of psychology. I do not intend to analyze the emotions of Hezbollah’s supporters here, as it is difficult to separate these emotions from the economy and from four decades of “victories” that its supporters perceive in their confrontations with their adversaries at home and abroad, such as the events of May 7, the July 2006 war, the Syrian war, and even the conflict in Yemen.
When asked, Zuhair Al-Dibs replied that the political moments in which campaigns of treason escalate are due to a long tradition in this context, including what was prevalent at the height of the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the slogan “No voice is louder than the voice of the battle”, which is renewed today under the slogan “The word is for the field”.
This means further restricting public debate, silencing voices, and tightening restrictions on expression, so that any dissenting opinion is excluded or criminalized and removed from the public sphere, in favor of a single discourse that dominates as the sole expression of “the truth.” In its most extreme manifestations, this leads to the disruption of any possibility of pluralistic debate, and confines the final word to what is attributed to “the field.”
The effect of this logic, in its most dangerous form, extends to weakening or disrupting the work of the constitutional state institutions, especially the Council of Ministers and the House of Representatives, all the way to the position of the Presidency of the Republic, where the political process is reduced to a single source of decision and direction.
Al-Dibs believes that the increasing use of social media as a tool for expression and its escape from the grip of censorship has increased methods of intimidation in order to control the public space. The best expression of this is what has become common “before and after the sahsuh,” as many who have expressed their opinion openly are forced to retract it and apologize under threat.
This is what happened with the “Manateq Net” platform, which published a video of a displaced woman from Aitaroun to a shelter in Sidon, in which she expressed her opinion and suffering in simple but spontaneous and honest words. The woman and the platform were subjected to threats, intimidation campaigns, and severe pressures in an attempt to remove the video from the platform and also to make the displaced woman apologize. This reflects the narrowing of the climate of freedom to its lowest level, or even the cancellation of that related to the right to express pain.
Some may believe that the attacks carried out by the defenders of this side are justified and fall within the framework of normal criticism and freedom of opinion, but Al-Dibs explains: “It is self-evident that expressing an opinion is guaranteed by the constitution and protected by law, and any criticism of that opinion remains available and legitimate under the law as well.” However, the problem, as he sees it, begins when the response to the opinion turns into organized campaigns that practice intimidation and threats, as the matter then goes out of the framework of public discussion to the framework of suppressing and silencing the other opinion.
Mona Jahmi, a philosophy teacher in secondary education for 34 years and displaced from the city of Tyre, recounts that she began writing, publishing, and expressing her opposition to Hezbollah since the Israeli withdrawal from the south in 2000, as she called for the weapons to be handed over to the state, considering that there was no longer a need for them. She also called for following the example of the French resistance against the German occupation in World War II, but these calls did not receive any response.
She points out that her articles were published in Al-Nahar newspaper, especially after the July 2006 war, and that at that stage she became an enemy in the eyes of what she calls the “incubating environment,” and was subjected to campaigns of insults, social ostracism and accusations, including accusing her of being a “paid pen,” a “Freemason,” and a “Zionist agent,” as she puts it.
She says that her anger over this behavior intensified during what she describes as the “first catastrophe” in 2024, as she continued to publish her daily positions and criticisms through her Facebook page, noting multiple attempts to curb her criticisms through accusations of treason, slander, and insults, without stopping publishing or deleting any of her material, despite receiving threats to prevent her from returning to the city of Tyre after the end of the war, which she says she did not care about, and returned “with her head held high,” as she describes it.
In what she describes as the “second catastrophe” of 2026, she reports that the pace of cyberattacks has increased significantly, and that she has been receiving threatening and abusive messages from multiple sources, including students, party members, and young men and women, via social media. She also indicates that these pressures have extended to her family, as her daughter in Beirut was contacted, threatened, and intimidated.
Jahmi expresses her fear and guilt towards her family, but she affirms that she continues to write and publish without deleting any of her posts or interviews, considering that she no longer has anything to lose in light of what she describes as “general ruin,” and indicating her adherence to what she considers “steadfastness” in the face of these pressures.
Based on the messages and screenshots she sent me, many of them contained explicit sexual innuendo and insults, reflecting an additional level of directed social violence.
This form of attack is inseparable from the gender dimension of targeting, as violence is compounded when women are the opposing or critical party, and thus it is not limited to their voices and political opinions, but their gender identity is also targeted as an additional point of weakness that legitimizes the discourse of intimidation more and more.
Women in the digital public sphere are disproportionately exposed to defamatory and threatening sexually explicit speech, aimed at forcing them to withdraw or practice self-censorship. This form of violence is read as an extension of digital violence within the public sphere, and not as isolated individual cases.
In this sense, the attack takes on a complex character: political on one hand, and gendered on the other, as sexual insults and physical innuendos are used as a tool to silence voices and control the limits of participation in both the virtual and real worlds.
Lebanese journalist Mariam Seifeddine, a political refugee in France, says that those who are constantly subjected to online campaigns become more likely to remain in the spotlight and under constant surveillance, as these attacks do not come randomly, but rather the parties that launch them are largely known through their previous positions, making it difficult to separate them from their political and ideological context.
In this context, she refers to an incident that happened to her after she wrote a post on the “X” platform that read: “If the monster has its mouth open, don’t throw yourself into it,” but this comment quickly turned into material for a new online campaign against her.
She notes that an activist within Hezbollah’s online community, who enjoys a wide following among Hezbollah supporters, initiated the campaign. His post garnered significant engagement on the X platform, exceeding 1,500 likes. She points out that his comment included a false claim about her place of residence, alleging that she lives in the UAE, along with accusations of a moral nature that damaged her personal reputation.
Saif Al-Din reads this type of discourse as an extension of defamation mechanisms that are not satisfied with political disagreement, but resort to using stereotypical and gendered descriptions to undermine the credibility of women in particular, by linking them to ready-made moral narratives that aim to cast doubt on them socially and push them to retreat or remain silent.
She also points out that some of the attacks she faces are personal and gender-based, involving the spread of lies and rumors about her private life in an attempt to undermine her social and moral standing. She cites, for example, the circulation of baseless claims about her personal life and her residence in France, which goes beyond political disagreement to social ostracism and defamation. Despite this, she affirms that these campaigns have not deterred her from writing or removing her posts; on the contrary, they motivate her to write more, stemming from her conviction that the existence of dissenting opinions opens up a necessary space for pluralism within the public sphere.
Saifeddine asserts that the reactions are not limited to Hezbollah’s supporters alone. Since October 7th, a striking paradox has emerged: individuals with whom she previously shared common ground in struggles based on principles opposing incitement, sexism, and hate speech have resorted to similar practices of betrayal and exclusion. She believes this phenomenon is not confined to specific individuals but reflects a broader shift in the public sphere, where simply expressing a dissenting opinion is enough to label someone as an oppressor, a collaborator, or a political enemy.
She adds that some of the tools and concepts that were previously used to confront patriarchal and authoritarian structures are being selectively repackaged, and terms and approaches, including “intersectionality,” are being used as tools to legitimize processes of exclusion and betrayal.
She observes that online intimidation campaigns escalate at specific political junctures, particularly when information or narratives contradicting the prevailing discourse are circulated. In this context, she notes that political parties, especially Hezbollah, have increasingly focused on using digital platforms to control public opinion, leveraging these platforms’ ability to spread rapidly, disseminate misinformation, and exert forms of social control in predominantly Shia areas.
These cases raise a broader issue concerning the complex relationship between freedom of opinion and expression on the one hand, and hate speech and content control mechanisms in the digital space on the other. The issue does not seem to be merely a disagreement about the limits of criticism or a difference of opinion, but is related to the structure of the public sphere itself, and to how pluralism is managed within it in light of the rise of political and social polarization and hate speech.
Hence, the need arises for a clear legal and institutional approach that regulates the digital space and limits forms of verbal violence, incitement, and defamation, including organized online campaigns, without this approach becoming a tool to restrict freedom of expression or being used as a means to silence critical voices. The main challenge lies in finding a delicate balance between protecting individuals from hate speech and threats, and guaranteeing the fundamental right to expression, criticism, and accountability.
Leaving the digital space without effective controls also contributes to the spread of incitement, which directly impacts social reality, especially when political differences become justification for accusations of treason, personal attacks, or gender-based targeting. In this context, some forms of digital violence cannot be separated from the long-standing patterns of political escalation that have accumulated over the years, creating a fertile ground for discourses of exclusion and defamation. The case of political opponent Lokman Slim, who was killed in 2021 in southern Lebanon after years of threats and incitement campaigns against him, is a case in point. This example illustrates the danger of the intersection of digital and political discourse in producing a climate of violence that can spill over from the virtual world into the real world.
Conversely, excessive or selective use of censorship tools may undermine public trust and widen the divide within society, rather than contribute to regulating and protecting the public sphere.
Therefore, the Lebanese state has a responsibility to develop a legislative and institutional framework that keeps pace with the transformations of digital media, and establishes an environment that ensures the safety of expression on the one hand, and protects the public sphere from slipping into digital chaos on the other. This is also linked to re-establishing the concept of citizenship as a comprehensive framework that transcends narrow affiliations, and restores the common space for public debate, allowing for the return of trust between individuals and institutions, and enhancing the potential for pluralism within the public sphere.