Editor’s Note: As of December 2019, one of the below linked YouTube-posted videos has been removed from the platform for “violating YouTube’s policy on violent or graphic content.” A shocking video emerged at the end of last week, showing members of the Egyptian military apparently extrajudicially executing unarmed men. Both Amnesty International and Human Rights…
From online videos of war crimes, to satellite images of rights violations in areas as reclusive as North Korea, to eyewitness accounts disseminated on social media, we have access to more relevant data today than ever before. These new data streams open up new opportunities for human rights documentation, and have a profound impact on…
Big shout out to our colleagues from WITNESS, who just released an important new resource on using eyewitness videos in human rights reporting and advocacy in an ethical way. I consider this a highly relevant resource for everyone working with citizen media. This posting by Madeleine Bair was originally published by the WITNESS Media Lab. In…
By Sam Dubberley – First posted by Eyewitness Media Hub Eyewitness Media Hub is embarking on a cross-industry study into the impact of traumatic footage — and we need your help Eyewitness Media Hub, with the support of the Open Society Foundations, is conducting a cross-industry study into the impact of vicarious trauma on journalists, human rights investigators…
Good news for investigators: The European Journalism Center today published a handbook on how to use and verify user-generated content in in-depth investigations. It is a companion handbook to the original Verification Handbook, which focused on breaking news, and includes my chapter on using user-generated content in human rights investigations. The need for such a…
Featured picture: Image extracted from one of the analyzed videos, showing what appears to be a member of the Nigerian military. The uniform has the words “Borno State Operation Flush” emblazoned. Note: parts of this picture have been blurred due to its graphic nature. Gruesome video footage, images and testimonies gathered by Amnesty International provide…
It is possible to extract hidden information from YouTube video. This can be a relatively cumbersome process that can be simplified through our YouTube Data Viewer. Step 1: Go to the YouTube Data Viewer Step 2: Enter the URL of your video and hit enter
The YouTube Data Viewer is a simple tool to extract hidden data from videos hosted on YouTube. It allows you to extract the following variables, which are most useful for tracking down original content: Exact Upload Time Useful to determine original video when confronted with several copies of the same video from the same date;…
Please note this tutorial has been revised on 29 January 2020. Please see the updated version of this tutorial here. A “reverse image search” allows you to search the internet for previous versions of the same picture. This is crucial for determining if an old image is being “recycled” as new. Especially during emergencies, old…
In case you’d like to do an analysis of the audio of a video, there’s a very easy way to extract the audio, using the handy 4K Video Downloader software. Step 1: Install 4K Video Downloader Step 2: Copy the video link Step 3: Open 4K Video Downloader on your computer and click “Paste URL”