How online conspiracies about Syria cause real-world harm | Stop the War |

Estimates of civilian lives lost since March 2011 vary greatly, from about 117,000 to 226,000 – but the vast scale of this modern killing field is indisputable. “Tens of thousands of civilians arbitrarily detained in Syria remain forcibly disappeared, while thousands more have been subject to torture, sexual violence or death in detention,” the UN reported this month. Syria’s cities and economy are in ruins. Twelve million people face hunger. Such figures may have lost the power to shock. But the underlying moral question still has universal relevance: why is this carnage allowed to continue?