This resource-based campaign incorporates learnings from participants at our mis/disinformation West Africa convening and seeks to build resilience in communities most at risk of mis/information and empower them to push back against it. The campaign will support communities with the right skills and tools to identify the threats and prioritize solutions that are contextually relevant to the African continent. 

We have seen the ease in which videos and audios, often crudely edited or even simply recycled and re-contextualized can perpetuate and renew cycles of violence. The emergence of deepfakes and other forms of synthetic media enable more seamless, more accessible abilities to make someone appear to say or do something they never did.  Also, the advancement of technology developed to mislead makes it increasingly difficult to detect and verify misleading content. 

WITNESS is focused on proactive approaches to protecting marginalized voices and human rights as emerging technologies intersect with the pressures of misinformation, disinformation and rising digital authoritarianism. The campaign would adopt a hybrid approach in reaching its objective and would run for six months. There would be physical engagement at the grassroots, including training of community based organizations, activists and journalists on combating mis/disinformation and using video as a tool to elevate the truth amongst other on-the-ground interventions. Simultaneously, the campaign would apply online engagement to reach the set target. 

We implore you to join us in amplifying this campaign by 

• Resharing some of the videos and graphics from the campaign page
• Using the hashtag #VerifyBeforeSharing
• Downloading and sharing the report from our mis/disinformation West Africa convening
• Advocating to stakeholders including tech platforms to implement the recommendations of the report.

In 2017 especially—from the villainization of the Rohingya fueling a genocide, to the epidemic of violence and video used as entertainment against the transgender community—activists are fighting false narratives on the daily. And when there is footage supporting this fight that authorities want to destroy, archiving is crucial.

Screenshot from WITNESS Media Lab case study on police violence and accountability.

This is epitomized in the case of Kianga Mwamba, who retrieved her eyewitness video documenting police abuse from the cloud after officers had deleted it from her phone. Knowing how and when to store footage and then retrieve it can alter the course of a case of abuse, from getting the truth out against an official narrative to the difference between an innocent or guilty judicial verdict. 

So join us in celebrating this month and bolstering the work of courageous activists by learning to protect human rights footage. Our Activists’ Guide to Archiving is available online and for download in English, Spanish, Arabic, and Portuguese. From creation, to organization and storage, the guide takes readers through step-by-step processes used in archiving workflows. 

As always, we welcome feedback, remixing, and sharing of our resources. Together, we can make sure that powerful stories and evidence are not erased, forgotten, or denied.

The Check Project has worked to build online tools, support independent journalists, and develop media literacy training resources that aim to improve the investigative quality of citizen journalism and help limit the rapid spread of rumors and misinformation online.

Our MENA Sr. Program Coordinator Raja Althaibani will speak on a panel with our partners at Syrian Archive  along with Bellingcat and Meedan. This panel will be followed by a workshop covering:

• Un/ Framing Syria : Citizen content and conflict mediation in the digital age
• Experiences from the field: Using Video for Change in the MENA
• Archiving the Syrian War
• Fact-checking video narrative of conflict: Analyzing airstrikes in Syria and Iraq

CheckCon’s free, public Unconference takes place on Saturday, April 22nd. Register here.

For more information on the conference and to view the full 2017 program, click here.

WITNESS will demo the latest version of Proof Mode, an app we created in partnership with The Guardian Project, for verifying and sharing photos and video shot on smartphones.

Proceeds from this event will benefit WITNESS, Center for Media Justice, Interference Archive, Electronic Frontier Foundation, and The Guardian Project.

Share the open invite and RSVP today!

DATE: April 13th, 2017

LOCATION: Industry City Distillery | 33 35th St | 6th Floor | Brooklyn, NY

TIME: 7PM

P.S. – Can’t make it? Donate to WITNESS instead!

First Draft News is a coalition formed in June 2015, which provides a platform for experts to share tips and tools to gather and verify eyewitness media. Its new partner network aims to expand “trust and truth in reporting information that emerges online.” The network bringing together major social network platforms as well as global newsrooms, and organizations to provide guidance, help shape policies, and provide resources and trainings to journalists and reporters using social media and the web.  

The partner network will work in conjunction with social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube to find ways to streamline the verification of eyewitness media as well as increase news literacy amongst its users.

Alongside WITNESS, partners of the network include: The New York Times, The Washington Post, BuzzFeed News, CNN, ABC News (Australia), AJ+, ProPublica, European Journalism Centre, and Amnesty International and more.

To learn more about the network and for a full list of partners, visit firstdraftnews.com/partner-network.

To learn more about First Draft News, visit https://firstdraftnews.com/. 

From online videos of rights violations to satellite images of environmental degradation, to eyewitness accounts disseminated on social media, we have access to more relevant data today than ever before. When used responsibly, this data can help human rights professionals in the courtroom, when working with governments and journalists, and in documenting historical record.

But integrating data collection and management into the day to day work of human rights work and documentation can be challenging, even overwhelming, for individuals and organisations.

The resource is the result of a collaborative project led by Amnesty International, Benetech, and The Engine Room, which WITNESS was invited to participate in.

The contributions from WITNESS are informed by our work with partners and allies around the world and seek to address specific issues they confront on a regular basis – such as video verification and ethical use of eyewitness media, video takedowns on online platforms, and developing well-organized catalogues of human rights footage, such as police abuse or war crimes. 

For specific guidance on these issues, check out the sections:

• “Verify, Verify, Verify” (p.24)
• “Here Today, Gone Tomorrow: Preserving Online Videos and Photos” (p. 48)
• “Organising Your Photo and Video Catalogue” (p. 51)
• Download the full guide here

Contact

To find out more about the project, or give feedback, please email: hrdocs@theengineroom.org

Since late 2015, WITNESS and FiSahara have together leveraged online videos to support more effective reporting on Western Sahara – a territory that is nearly invisible to the outside world. The two organizations have trained at-risk Sahrawi media activists and human rights defenders on safe and effective documentation, and utilized the curation platform Checkdesk to curate, verify, and contextualize online reports.

Watching Western Sahara Silk compiles nearly 100 online videos recorded between December 2015 and June 2016, and allows users to view them within the context of larger stories of human rights in Western Sahara. In addition to other issues, these videos collectively expose a pattern of police intervention of peaceful protests, a large social movement calling for economic opportunities, ongoing demands for self-determination, and women-led demonstrations addressing the treatment of political prisoners. Click here to explore interactive reports and find videos based on location, time of recording, and other data points.   

The United Nations considers Western Sahara one of the world’s last “non-self-governing territories.” The Sahrawi population has lived under Moroccan rule for more than 40 years, despite a 1991 UN-brokered agreement to hold a referendum for self-determination. Due to strict limitations on the press, foreigners, and international human rights monitors, very rarely does footage or other reporting from the territory come to the attention of the international community.

More on this project and media activism in Western Sahara can be found here.

In collaboration with the News Lab at Google, and continuing the work of its predecessor, the Human Rights Channel on YouTube, the WITNESS Media Lab will address the challenges of finding, verifying, and contextualizing eyewitness videos for the purpose of creating lasting change.

The WITNESS Media Lab will focus on one issue for a few months at a time, using new tools, strategies and platforms for research, verification and contextualization of citizen video. We will share analysis and resources publicly online via case studies, blog articles, multimedia presentations and through in-person convenings with peers. The first project will look at several cases of eyewitness video of police violence in the United States.

“We’re incredibly encouraged by the growing capacity of people everywhere to capture video of human rights abuses in their communities. We’re also aware of the critical need for skills to harness the potential of those videos, in order to turn them into tools for justice,” said Madeleine Bair, Program Manager for the WITNESS Media Lab.

Drawing on more than two decades of supporting people to use video for human rights advocacy, the WITNESS Media Lab will leverage the organization’s in-house expertise as well as that of our extensive peer networks in the fields of advocacy, technology, and journalism. Together with them, the WITNESS Media Lab will seek to develop solutions to ensure that footage taken by average citizens can impact some of the world’s most pressing and persistent injustices.

“Videos depicting human rights abuses on YouTube can be an incredibly powerful tool to expose injustice, but context is critical to ensuring they have maximum impact,” said Steve Grove of the News Lab at Google. “We’re thrilled that WITNESS is bringing their deep expertise to this space in the WITNESS Media Lab, and we are honored to be partnering with them.”

For more details visit us at WITNESS Media Lab website and follow us @WITNESS_Lab. And YouTube published an announcement today detailing their support of the WITNESS Media Lab and a two other projects focused on the power of citizen video.

Press inquiries and requests for interviews should be directed to Matisse Bustos-Hawkes at WITNESS via our press kit or on Twitter @matissebh.

About the News Lab at Google

The News Lab at Google is the company’s effort to empower innovation at the intersection of technology and media. Our mission is to collaborate with journalists and entrepreneurs to build the future of media with Google. We do this through a global outreach effort to empower technology-driven storytelling in newsrooms; a strong data journalism practice based on our Google Trends platform; and through unique partnerships that seek to increase access to quality information globally.

As a partner and trainee of WITNESS’, Rooj was interviewed alongside Yvette, discussing the role video has played in documenting conflict in Yemen. Rooj noted that authenticating video is a particular challenge citizen journalists face when sharing stories from conflict affected regions, and recounted a time when her organization in Yemen needed to verify footage they were receiving. She said, “thankfully at the time WITNESS was in Yemen and put together a quick training on how to verify footage” which has equipped citizen journalists she works with to authenticate their videos.

The Road Map segment can be viewed online here.

Sniffing out hoaxes is not always so easy. But as user-generated content plays a greater role in news coverage, we need to do a better job verifying what it is we’re seeing, and giving our audience the context they need to understand it.

You may not be able to say with 100 percent certainty where and when the footage was filmed, but you can at least avoid misinforming your audience or putting a citizen at risk.

Her article on MuckRack’s blog is aimed at journalists, but is useful for any of us who want to maintain a healthy skepticism about the vast amounts of video footage circulating. In essence, seeing should not always mean ‘believing’.

In addition to the five tips Madeleine shares in the article, she also connects readers to a Verification resource page we’ve created on the Human Rights Channel’s site with more in depth guidance and tools from organizations such as Amnesty International, Ushahidi and the European Journalism Centre.

Meanwhile, in Cebu, Philippines, Arul Prakkash, our program manager for Asia was also talking verification. Prakkash attended the 2015 Global Voices Summit. Global Voices is an international community of bloggers, journalists and citizens who report and translate stories from their communities to share globally on the internet. Here is some of the feedback following the the workshop that focused on the basics of verifying citizen video:

Very good session on how to verify videos for documentation purposes, by @arulprk from @witnessorg. Super practical and useful. #GV2015

— Leila Nachawati Rego (@leila_na) January 24, 2015

@arulprk: key tools to #verify videos http://t.co/cvQCufzdLg, http://t.co/vKDwsYXIFN, http://t.co/2YldyLsa7p, googleReverseImage

— QZ (@Natrani) January 24, 2015