Tools

RESOURCE HUBS

1. Bellingcat Resources @ https://www.bellingcat.com/category/resources/how-tos/ – Bellingcat investigates a variety of subjects being discussed across the world, by bringing together contributors who specialise in open source and social media investigation. It creates guides and case studies so others may learn to do the same.
2. The Verification Handbook @ http://verificationhandbook.com/ – Authored by leading journalists from the BBC, Storyful, ABC, Digital First Media and other verification experts, the Verification Handbook is a resource for journalists. It provides tools, techniques and step-by-step guidelines for how to deal with user-generated content during emergencies.
3. Security in a Box @ https://securityinabox.org/en/ – Security in-a-box was first created in 2009 by Front Line Defenders and Tactical Technology Collective, along with a global network of thousands of activists, trainers and digital security experts to meet the digital security and privacy needs of human rights defenders. Security in a box provides excellent guides covering the basic principles of using social networking platforms, mobile phones, and digital security software. It also provides advice on tools and tactics that are tailored to the needs of different communities.

PROPAGANDA TOOLS

Using tools that modify the search process or clear out the noise is a powerful way to refine your search and get faster and better results. Most important of all, however, is to know where a story begins – its origin – because that gets you closer to the facts behind the spin.

1. Trends24 @ https://trends24.in/ – Using the Trends24 timeline view, you can keep hourly tabs on the latest Twitter trending topics globally and in every country.
2. Ctrlq.org/first @ http://ctrlq.org/first/ – To verify the source as well as the content of information shared online before you publish a story. Using search keywords, or even a link, Ctrlq.org/first is able to identify the very first tweet on a given hashtag.
3. Twazzup @ http://new.twazzup.com/ – Twazzup provides the most popular tweets, a list of people who began a trend, , related photos, the popular related links as well as more keywords associated with your search.
4. Keyhole @ https://keyhole.co/ – Keyhole’s real-time dashboard shows how many people posted using your hashtag, along with the number of retweets, likes and impressions your campaign is generating. Keyhole also tracks the most influential people engaging with your brand.

AUDITING PHOTOS/GRAPHICS

“Photos are incredibly powerful. They influence how we see the world. They even influence our memory of things. If we can’t tell the fake ones from the real ones, the fakes are going to be powerful, too.” – Sophie J Nightingale, Cognitive Psychology Research

These tools enable you to audit photos online. Knowing all the places a photo has been used or finding images that are similar to it can help you get the right visuals for your story. For photojournalists, Reverse Image Search shows you where else your image has shown up online.

1. Fotoforensics @ http://fotoforensics.com/ Fotoforensics uses Error Level Analysis (ELA) to help visualize different parts of images that have undergone compression. ELA shows the absolute difference between the image under analysis and its recompressed version as JPEG.
2. TinEye @ https://tineye.com/ TinEye provides image search and recognition. It is a useful tool for searching where an image has been used before.
3. Google Image Reverse Search @ https://images.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl To use Google to find out how images are being used online: Right-click on your image and select “Search Google for this Image.” Or go to images.google.com, click on the camera icon, and either upload the image from your computer or input the image URL to search for that image.
4. Exifdata @ http://exifdata.com/ This tool provides metadata on photos. EXIF is short for Exchangeable Image File, a format that is a standard for storing metadata on image files. Almost all digital cameras use the EXIF annotation, storing information such as shutter speed, exposure compensation, F-number, what metering system was used, if a flash was used, ISO number, date and time the image was taken, white balance, auxiliary lenses that were used, and resolution. Some images may even store GPS information so you can see where the images were taken.
5. The Amnesty YouTube Dataviewer @ https://citizenevidence.amnestyusa.org/ This tool enables you to enter the URL of a YouTube video and automatically extract the correct upload time and all thumbnails associated with the video. The video upload time and thumbnails, which are difficult to identify on YouTube are essential when verifying a YouTube video. The upload time which is not clearly depicted on the video page is critical in helping determine the origin of a video. The thumbnails are useful because you can plug them into a reverse image search tool such as Google Image or TinEye and see where else online these images appear.