1. Not Providing the Original Source
The main tenet of open-source research is that it's 'open': ideally the information is publicly accessible and used in a transparent way. This allows anyone to verify the sourcing and veracity of a piece of footage, without having to trust the person who posted it.
In the wake of Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, many "OSINT aggregator" accounts developed large followings on Twitter, mostly reposting videos from Telegram, often without linking to the video's original source. When someone posts a video without saying where they got it from, verification becomes much more difficult;
researchers can't just follow a chain of links to its origin.
Without any clues as to who originally uploaded that video, we lose potentially crucial information about its content. Though most social media platforms strip metadata, for some platforms such as Telegram and Parler retain it. Such image metadata has played important roles in Bellingcat investigations on subjects from @Anon's origins to Russian disinformation in Ukraine. This means that first instance of a photo or video may also contain metadata which is lost when the content is reuploaded, shared or compressed.
Bear in mind that there are circumstances when it can be ethically fraught to provide a link, such as if doing so would amplify hateful accounts or drive traffic to graphic content content. Nevertheless, a rule of thumb is to share when you can.
That's because sharing the origin of a piece of content is a greater contribution than keeping it to yourself - the better to hoard future 'discoveries'.
Can we please make #BlueSky an example of best practice in #InformationHygiene?
We’re mostly ordinary peeps, but we can all be extraordinary very easily.
Provide links to what you share, things you refer to or to back up claims you make.
Point 1. www.bellingcat.com/resources/20...
