The article draws upon the concepts of entextualization, language choice and chronotopes to examine digital activism during the 2011 Syrian uprising. The data are drawn from a longitudinal analysis of two Syrian dissidents’ Facebook pages between 2010 and 2012. The analysis of posts and comments demonstrates a shift in the repertoire used by the two dissidents to signal two distinct chronotopic identities vis-á-vis the sociopolitical context: cosmopolitan identities prior to the 2011 uprising (signaled by use of emoji, English, and reference to international events) and dissident identities (signaled by use of Syrian Arabic and absence of visual modes). This article documents the role of chronotopes in signaling dissent in the context of digital political activism in Arabia.