WITNESS Media Lab | Portfolio Archive - Page 5 of 9

11 Apr Ethical use of perpetrator content

| WITNESS ETHICAL USE OF PERPETRATOR CONTENT Collecting and analysing perpetrator content raises several ethical concerns, both in terms of the potential impact on journalists or investigators, and because of concerns relating to the use and dissemination of such material and the risks to the safety and

11 Apr Archiving content and associated metadata

| WITNESS ARCHIVING CONTENT AND ASSOCIATED METADATA Consideration should be given to the nature of the content. It may need to be hosted offline, ideally backed up to multiple drives, or on private servers, as hosting companies may take issue with such content. However, encrypted online storage

11 Apr Aggregation of Sensitive Data & Ethical Use

| WITNESS AGGREGATION OF SENSITIVE DATA & ETHICAL USE Verified content should be archived systematically. Download everything. Due to the problematic nature of perpetrator content, videos should be downloaded immediately, since they may be removed by platforms, or an uploader’s account may be suspended for breach of

11 Apr Audience Engagement

| WITNESS AUDIENCE ENGAGEMENT The reach of a given video cannot be exhaustively tracked. Views, interactions, etc, will rarely give an accurate picture in the case of perpetrator video, which is often copied, shared and reshared multiple times. Due to the nature of perpetrator content, platforms often

11 Apr Location

| WITNESS LOCATION Verifying the location of a video depends on a careful assessment of unique identifiers: geographic, cultural, clothing, language used, and so on. Each of these can provide contextual clues to the location or corroborating information. Search for useful information (street signs, car license plates,

11 Apr Source

| WITNESS SOURCE If the answers to the above questions are yes, this may be the earliest source. Are there other ways to find out more about the uploader and people seen in the video? Review the uploader’s social profile and check for a presence on other

11 Apr Date

| WITNESS DATE For any piece of content, sort search results chronologically and replicate the keyword searches across platforms – Do you have the earliest instance of the video? Use reverse image search on thumbnails, key frames, on-screen logos, etc. Look for earlier versions of the video,

11 Apr The Verification Process

| WITNESS THE VERIFICATION PROCESS Storyful’s verification process seeks to establish the original source, date and location for each piece of content using all available open source tools and techniques. Storyful categorises content in terms of three levels of verification: Checking, Corroborated and Confirmed.

11 Apr Finding and Recording Metadata

| WITNESS FINDING AND RECORDING METADATA Applying the leads and content worthy of further examination. Your results will constantly improve through a circular process that involves: starting with reliable sources for leads; methodical searches of key platforms based on an understanding of the preferred means of communication;

11 Apr Manual Searches

| WITNESS MANUAL SEARCHES Using your relevant source lists, scan for content, stories and topics. From these, develop relevant keywords: locations, terms, topics, and colloquialisms. You should build a profile of what you’re looking for – the who, what, where, when. This data set will differ for