Jochen Spangenberg, innovation manager at Deutsche Welle and the Reveal project, gave his advice on sourcing stories on social media at the recent news:rewired digital journalism conference

1. Verification of UGC / Eyewitness Media:Verification of UGC / Eyewitness Media:
Challenges & Approaches
Jochen Spangenberg
Innovation Manager // Deutsche Welle & REVEAL Project
https://about.me/jospang
http://blogs.dw.de/innovation/ & http://revealproject.eu/
jochen.spangenberg@dw.com
Twitter: @RevealEU & @jospang & @dw_innovation
London, 16 July 2015

2. Note: this is a slightly adapted version of the presentation held at news:rewiredNote: this is a slightly adapted version of the presentation held at news:rewired
on 16 July 2015 in London
It is made available to participants and others interested in the topic verification
of eyewitness media (or UGC, as it is often called, too)
Copyright notice: Copyrights, trademarks, logos etc remain with respective
copyright holders. Usage of logos, images, screenshots etc in this presentation
is for non-commercial demonstration purposes only. Respective rules for usage
apply.

3. ???
Source: Georg Mittenecker (CC BY-SA 2.5)

4. Sources of all images: see http://revealproject.eu/
for respective copyright holders
Finding out how journalists deal with eyewitness media: issues, challenges, wishes,
concerns (extracts of selected interviews on www.revealproject.eu)

5. Wishful thinking …
Source: Scientology „e-meter“. Image by Salimfadhley. (CC BY-SA 3.0)

6. Reality check
Verification of UGC / eyewitness media
• can be laborious• can be laborious
• can be time-consuming
• requires particular (new) skill sets
• Does not (yet) follow industry-wide rules / practices

7. ButBut

8. Source: Janis Krums, who took the photo in Jan 2009 on his iPhone and posted on
TwitPic / shared via Twitter, from where it was picked up by numerous news
outlets. See https://twitter.com/#!/jkrums/status/1121915133)
Source: images circulating on Twitter, claiming
to show crashed Germanwings flight 9525
Source (of first manipulation): unknown

9. So what to do?So what to do?

10. Dealing with (Verification of) UGC / Eyewitness Media
Media organisations: be a facilitator
Journalists:
- value of established (and useful) journalistic practices / skills ...
- knowledge of useful tools (usage, benefits / shortcomings) ...
Sources: Screenshots of Suncalc, Google Maps & Translate, Tweetdeck, Followerwonk, Mentionmapp, Topsy, Storyful Pro, Jeffrey’s Exif Viewer, Panoramio, Pipl

11. How?How?

12. • Is it really what it’s supposed to be?
• Is it “too good to be true”?
Source: http://istwitterwrong.tumblr.com/post/34563249044/is-
that-really-a-picture-of-hurricane-sandy
Source: http://www.thomaspeschak.com/kayak-great-white-sharks-/

13. Source: screenshot of aSource: screenshot of a
Google Reverse Image Search
Source: screenshot of a Tineye image search
Source: screenshot of a Wolfram Alpha weather check for
New Jersey on 29 Oct 2012 (supposed date of photo with
shark in New Jersey)
http://www.wolframalpha.com/
Source: screenshot of an Exif
data check performed with
Jeffrey‘s Exif Viewer.
http://regex.info/exif.cgi

14. The Big W’sThe Big W’s

15. What?
Source : Witness.org blog. http://blog.witness.org/2013/01/how-informacam-improves-verification-of-mobile-media-files/

16. Who?
Source: screenshots of
Sources: screenshots of Twitter Profiles
Source: screenshots of mentionmapp analysis
followerwonk analysis

17. Where?
Source: Panoramio screenshot
Source: Flickr, by sarflondondunc, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
Source: Panoramio screenshot
Source: Flickr, by Paul Stein, (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Flickr, by s1lang, (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

18. When?
Source: YouTube metadata screenshot
Source: Flickr, by Petr Dosek, (CC BY-SA 2.0)

19. Why?
Source : Screenshot of Twitter profiles of IDF and Al Qassam Brigades

20. Source: REVEAL / Linda Rath-Wiggins

21. The REVEAL approach
• Can we teach (develop) algorithms that can distinguish truths from lies /
facts from manipulations (assuming that there is such a thing called ”truth“)?
ContributorC
C
C
ontributor
ontent
ontext

22. The REVEAL approach
R&D dealing with, among others
Contributor
• Who contributed what?
• What did they do in the past?
• Who follows him/her? With whom do they interact? How? What’s their
reputation? Tustworthiness?
• How long did social accounts exist? What can be derived from it?
• Links to profile pages, affiliates, contact data?
• ...

23. The REVEAL approach
R&D dealing with, among others
Content
• Image analysis (checks, similarity search, manipulations, comparisons)
• Text analysis (stylometry, accuracy, comparisons)
• (Rudimentary video analysis > not in focus)
• ...

24. The REVEAL approach
R&D dealing with, among others
Context
• Who says what how about the same / related topic, and what is being
said how?
• Who are the people contributing? What did they do previously? How did
they act/react? Can patterns be detected?
• How can information be connected sensibly and beneficially with other
resources. (E.g.: correlate Social Media activities with information from
disaster management / relief agencies / natural catastrophe centres etc)
• ...

25. User-driven GUI/interface development
Source: REVEAL

26. Functionalities
Source: REVEAL / http://demo.truthnest.com/

27. Work on 41 functionalities (we call them modalities)
Exemplary modality
Geospatial, social and topical context
information (developed by IT Innovation)
Source: REVEAL / IT Innovation

28. Some final remarks

29. Direct contact with source (but there are exceptions)
Source: plenty.r. (Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

30. Source protection / security of sources
Source: Dina Regine (Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0)

31. Crediting, sourcing and getting permission
Source: Extract from a ZDF TV Programme / news report

32. Ethical aspects
Source: Jordi Mir, on YouTube here

33. Our business
Source: Flickr, Terry Johnston , CC BY 2.0
”Getting it wrong once can be more powerful than getting it right 1000 times“

34. Useful resources

35. Useful resources
Source: http://revealproject.eu/

36. Useful resources
Source: screenshots of respective
publications (all available online)

37. Useful resources (selection)
• Bellingcat – collaborative investigations, initiated by Eliot Higgins
• Verification Junkie – directory of verification tools by Josh Sterns
• Eyewitness Media Hub – legal, ethical and logistic issues (Claire Wardle, Sam Dubberley, Jenni Sargent, Pete Brown)
• Research Clinic by Paul Myers – collection of research links and articles
• Citizen Evidence Lab – by Amnesty International, guidelines for verifying footage in videos
• Emergent – collaborative debunking (no longer in full operation) , by Craig Silverman
• Reported.ly’s Malachy Browne’s “pocket guide on verifying details of a video” and other useful guidelines
• Storyful (paid verification service) and Storyful Open Newsroom (collaborative verification platform)
• Craig Silverman’s Regret the Error on Poynter
• Work of Meedan (i.e. Checkdesk) / Tom Trewinnnard et al.
• Witness Blog & website – fighting for human rights / against human rights abuse
• Authenticating Open Source Video – a Witness tipsheet
• Link tips for Social Media research, by Konrad Weber
• Correctiv case study on downing of flight MH17
• WAN-INFRA article by Julie Posetti and Craig Silverman on newsroom / verification issues
• Resources of the BBC Academy, such as this contribution by Trushar Barot and this one by Alex Murray
• ....

38. Useful resources / great case studies & advice
https://medium.com/1st-draft

39. Thank you!
Contact
Jochen Spangenberg
DW Innovation Berlin
Tel: +49 (0)30 4646 5604, +49 (0)172 261 2315
https://about.me/jospang
jochen.spangenberg@dw.com
Twitter: @jospang, @revealeu, @dw_innovation
http://blogs.dw.de/innovation/ & http://revealproject.eu/