Thread by @omctorg

Join our livestream on Open-source investigation with the famous group of investigative journalists @Bellingcat.
It starts here bit.ly/2NJiWWN and now!
#EndTorture2021 #TogetherAgainstTorture

Open-source info is freely available to the public online. It is not hacking, spying or stealing. We use it to monitor what powerful people do - @N_Waters89 @Bellingcat

Everyone is walking around with a tracking device that can take photos, videos and they can upload them online. It's the most powerful information network humanity has ever seen - @N_Waters89

Because everyone likes filming interesting stuff and posting it social media, you can find a lot of data on internet. On cats, food but also on current events - airstrikes in #Syria, the underground bombing in #London.

You can identify when an event happened by checking what time related keywords are used on Twitter. This is actually very accurate - for example the 15 March 2016 airstrike on #Mastaba in #Yemen

Thanks to satellite images on Google Earth you can check if a photo found on internet really represents the place and the time it is said to represent - here a mass execution in #Benghazi #Libya

By searching in St Petersburg public data the first name and patronym of one of the suspects in the #Skripal poisoning we found a match to someone associated with the #Russian intelligence services

Preservation of sources is important, for example for potential use in front on international criminal justice: YouTube deleted very large numbers of videos related to the conflict in #Syria

You have to bear in mind ethical considerations when investigating: by verifying a video through geolocation you are potentially exposing the person’s location and putting them in danger - @N_Waters89 @bellingcat