What Happens When We Think of Online Video as Evidence?

WITNESS’ Madeleine Bair joined Storyful and Frontline Defenders for an online panel on citizen video’s increasingly important role in legal cases. Madeleine heads WITNESS’ Human Rights Channel where she and her team curate video of human rights violations shot by citizens around the world. She also contributes to WITNESS’ Video as Evidence work.

 

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Via the Storyful Open Newsroom:

If journalism is done right, with objective fact-finding its core purpose, the same standards should be applied to content as are to courtroom evidence.

So what happens when we start thinking of online video as evidence?

What does that demand of journalists, and what burdens does it place on the creator? Does gathering content of that nature create increased risks? What technology can be used to verify content and the hands it has passed through, and how can journalists go about protecting their sources? And what does it all mean for YouTube, as the world’s biggest video repository?