The document discusses the importance of verification in social media newsgathering. It outlines challenges like manipulated or false information being shared. It emphasizes the need to verify key details of user-generated content like who posted it, where it happened, when it happened and why before sharing or reporting on it. The document also discusses tools and techniques journalists can use to conduct verification, including checking metadata, contacting sources and considering ethical issues. Protecting sources and getting permission to use content are also outlined as important.

1. The Importance of VerificationThe Importance of Verification
in Social Newsgathering
Jochen Spangenberg
Innovation Manager // Deutsche Welle & REVEAL Project
jochen.spangenberg@dw.com // https://about.me/jospang
http://revealproject.eu/ & http://blogs.dw.de/innovation/
Twitter: @jospang & @RevealEU & @dw_innovation
Turin, 21 September 2015

2. So much information ...
Source: Mark Smiciklas (CC BY-NC 2.0)

3. The value of information from Social Networks
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: Global Voices Online, 26 April 2015.
Image by Kunda Dixit, editor of Nepali Times.
Source: Screenshot of Twitter
search by Jochen Spangenberg
during attack in Sousse, Tunisia,
on 26 June 2015

4. The pitfalls...
Source: images circulating on Twitter, claiming
to show crashed Germanwings flight 9525.
Taken from BBC Trending‘s Twitter account.
(The actual photo – unaltered – shows a plane
crash from years earlier
Source (of first manipulation): unknown.
Pretending to show hurricane Sandy approaching
New York
Source: Alisha Hessler — alias
Jasmine Tridevil — who claimed she
had had a third breast implant, to get
onto a reality TV show. The image
circulated widely on Social Networks –
before it was debunked that the third
breast was a prosthesis.

5. The role of (serious) journalism
Use content from Social Networks for the benefit of reporting /
storytelling to
• speed up the information gathering process
• obtain information that otherwise would be unavailable
• access a multitude of (directly involved) sources
• interact with and using audience / eyewitnesses, involving
them and their content in the storytelling process
• improve the user experience
• ...

6. Get it first –Get it first –
but first, get it right!

7. Next: on the importanceNext: on the importance
of verification

8. The media business / journalistic profession …
Source: Flickr, Terry Johnston , CC BY 2.0

9. ”Getting it wrong once can
be more powerful thanbe more powerful than
getting it right 1000 times“

10. The importance of verification
Source: BBC News website of 27 and 29 May 2012

11. So what to do?So what to do?

12. Verification of UGC / Eyewitness Media
- Media organisations
- Journalists
Sources: Screenshots of Suncalc, Google Maps & Translate, Tweetdeck, Followerwonk, Mentionmapp, Topsy, Storyful Pro, Jeffrey’s Exif Viewer, Panoramio, Pipl

13. The Big W’sThe Big W’s

14. What?
Source : Manipulated image shared by Facebook user Gregory Michael, apparently showing shark swimming in New Jersey waters after hurricane
Sandy. Taken from Witness.org blog. http://blog.witness.org/2013/01/how-informacam-improves-verification-of-mobile-media-files/

15. Who?
Source: screenshots of
Sources: screenshots of Twitter Profiles
Source: screenshots of mentionmapp analysis
Source: screenshots of
followerwonk analysis
Source: screenshots of
www.numberway.com
(int‘l phone directory)

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

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

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

19. Source: REVEAL / Linda Rath-Wiggins

20. The REVEAL approach
• Develop processes, algorithms and software components that aid in
verification / debunking of content shared via Social Networks
Contributor
• Investigate the market and relevant issues (other tools and approaches,
legal issues etc)
C
C
C
ontributor
ontent
ontext Source: REVEAL / http://demo.truthnest.com/

21. Some final remarks

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

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

24. Sourcing, crediting and getting permission
Source: Extract from a ZDF TV Programme / news report

25. Ethical aspects
Source: Jordi Mir, who filmed the execution of a French policeman during
the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris. Video on YouTube here
Source: The Guardian, 15 August 2015. The story of Feidin
Santana who filmed the shooting of Walter Scott by a policeman
in North Charleston, US, on 4 April 2015

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