I had worked in an administrative role for a company housing asylum seekers in the UK, and had spent the last ten years doing various administrative and financial roles. Within a year on the Brown Moses Blog I had exposed arms smuggling by Saudi Arabia to the Syrian rebels with the New York Times, identified and tracked the use of cluster munitions and the now notorious “barrel bombs” by the Syrian air force, and was increasingly being seen as being at the forefront of a new way to do journalism.
How did I do this? In a way it was something very simple. I took the vast amount of information being produced from Syria through social media channels such as YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, and worked to establish what was reliable within this maelstrom of information.
I developed an understanding of how social media was being used by Syrians. The “Houla Massacre” in May 2012 led to me realize YouTube channels were being set up by groups in different areas where they regularly posted videos from their local area. So, I began collecting these channels, some belonging to local civilians groups, others to armed groups, and started checking them on a daily basis for new videos, tracking the progress of the conflict in each area through those videos.
What started as a list of 25 channels has now grown to over 1,000, with 100,000s videos posted by groups across Syria. While this information was growing in accessibility, the important question was (and still is): Can we trust it?
I started looking for answers. Using a variety of open source tools and techniques it was possible to examine and verify the content of many videos. For example, with satellite map imagery available on sites like Google Maps I was able to confirm the locations videos were filmed by comparing the landmarks in the videos with what was visible on satellite maps. Facebook pages used by groups in Syria could be used to crosscheck claims made by other groups. As time went on I refined and expanded the processes I used. The most incredible thing is that the tools and resources I was using to do these investigations were all available online to anybody, and I realized in theory anyone could do these sorts of investigations.
MORE.... https://www.kickstarter.com/blog/how-i-became-a-one-man-intelligence-agency
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