In this three-part series, we focus on key elements behind the successful crowd-sourcing project, Decode Surveillance NYC, including the design of the data collection, early analysis, and what it means to build community online. Sofia Caferri, who joined the project team as a volunteer moderator,...

table { border-collapse: collapse; border-spacing: 0; width: 100%; border: 1px solid #ddd; } th, td { text-align: left; padding: 8px; vertical-align: text-top; } tr:nth-child(even){ background-color: #f2f2f2 } In this three-part series, we focus on key elements behind the successful crowd-sourcing...

Translation affects who can access our published work and who – through the decision to work in certain languages and not others – is included in the research. Yet, the decision to translate and how we handle translation rarely features in project methodologies and, unlike other tools or...

In this three-part series, we focus on key elements behind the successful crowd-sourcing project, Decode Surveillance NYC, including the design of the data collection, early analysis, and what it means to build community online. In this first post, the authors outline how the team...

Part Three: Keywords and advanced search This third and final post in a series on conducting online inquiries explores the importance of researching digital media landscapes, constructing effective keyword searches, and documenting the online inquiry process. Introduction In the two previous posts...

A combination of the summer in the Northern Hemisphere and many of the team finally taking leave has meant that we haven’t posted on Citizen Evidence Lab for several weeks. While we finish-up various posts that are under production, we wanted to take a moment to reflect on how this blog enriches...

Part Two: Browser and search engine basics In the second of this three-part guide examining open source information gathering, we look at the basic tools used for online inquiries, selecting the best ones for the job, and how to use them most effectively. Introduction In the first part of this blog...

In the Evidence Lab within Amnesty International’s Crisis Response Programme, we often need to use maps both to present the findings of our research and as an exploratory tool to help geolocate audio-visual material. These uses could include plotting geospatial data on a map in order to...

Five videos portraying a gruesome series of events appeared online in early March. First published by Tigrai Media House, a media outlet affiliated with the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), they depict the detention and eventual execution of a group of unarmed men purportedly in the Tigray...

Estimated time: 1 hour Experience level: Intermediate ?? Citizen Evidence Online Video Wrangler is a collection of bash scripts to batch download, resize, and generate thumbnails of online videos. It uses the popular (recently reinstated) GitHub project, youtube-dl. We developed the Online Video...

Part One: Sources of bias when gathering open source information In the first of this three-part guide examining open source information gathering, we look at the potential for information bias to influence an investigation and the importance of mitigating such biases when designing an effective...

One of the main remote sensing datasets used for human rights research is ‘fire data’. Fire data is an algorithm applied to measurements taken from space with environmental monitoring sensors aboard satellites. The algorithm uses those...