don't get fooled: verifying video on social media. by mandy jenkin. #rockitwaw
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Sorting News From NoiseMandy Jenkins, Head of News at Storyful
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Theres always someone closer to the story.
No content below the lineNo content below the lineContent from eyewitnesses to news events is often the first and best view of what really happened. Think about some of the biggest ongoing stories from the war in Syria, the refugee crisis, Trump rallies, Black Lives Matter and terror attacks in Brussels and Nice, eyewitness media is key to storytelling
But it cant always be taken at face value. Many times, we have seen news organizations fooled by false social media content.
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Storyful: Pioneering social verification for news & brands
journalists verify the authenticity of social content and its source
technology filters the social web to uncover the most impactful stories
clearing all rights and permissions for use on brand and publisher channels
VERIFYDISCOVERACQUIRE
No content below the lineNo content below the lineThis is why Storyful was started in 2010. We are a social content and news service, which is to say we specialize in discovering, verifying and acquiring rights to eyewitness and user-generated content for newsrooms and businesses all over the world.
Today, Ill show you a bit of our process and some practical tips to bring these processes into your newsgathering.
Verification: Interviewing the content
the source
time and date
location
No content below the lineNo content below the lineIn a sense, we interview and investigate the content to determine if it is real
Verification: the source.
Does their account look real?What is their connection to the story?How often do they post?Where do they post from?When was the account created?What is their upload history?Have you searched their username to find other linked accounts? Do they own the content?
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The Source.
Spokeo.comWhitepages.comPipl.comAccurintwho.isbit.ly/customfbsearchLinkedIn
No content below the lineNo content below the lineMuch like in traditional journalism, what works best is getting on the phone with the person or talking to them face to face. We get our best results and quickest verifications when this happens. Tools like Pipl, Accurint and Spokeo can help find that information.
Best Practices: Beware Scrapers
No content below the lineNo content below the lineBeware the account or the person that always has he best news, videos and photos, no matter what the location
They dont always mean ill. 7
Verification: the location.
What is the sources connection?Has it been automatically geo-located?Can we geo-locate images against Google Earth/Streetview? Do registration plates, signs, storefronts, etc. indicate country or state? Do accents or dialects indicate location?
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The Location.
Google EarthStreet ViewWikimapia
No content below the lineNo content below the lineVerification: the date.What is the actual time of upload (bearing in mind timestamp rules are different on all the platforms)?Does the information corroborate against other reports or sources?Are there shadows that tally with the time of day? Do weather reports corroborate with the date of the video or picture?If you are looking at a photo, can you check the eexchangeable image file (EXIF) data?
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Best Practices: Check EXIF Data
No content below the lineNo content below the lineAlso a Chrome Plugin Jeffreys EXIF viewe
Use this on images snt to you to verify authenticity and originality11
The Date.Wolfram AlphaFind My ShadowJeffreys EXIF ViewerReverse image searching
No content below the lineNo content below the line[Exif: Exchangable image file format, which contains information such as date, time, your camera's model and serial number, and even the GPS location where you took the photo]
Youll see how this works in just a moment
Case Study: Behind the Looting in Baltimore
No content below the lineNo content below the lineIn the spring of 2015, when Freddie Gray died in the custody of Baltimore police, citizens took to the streets to protest. Images and social media accounts bragging about property destruction and looting began getting attention in the media.
We decided to look into it.
No content below the lineNo content below the linea quick reverse image search showed that the photo was taken in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2012. We found the same with other shared images and the profile images on the accounts, which seemd to have been created to spread this misinformation.
This took less than one minute to debunk most of these accounts.
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Case Study: Transasia Airways Crash, Taiwan
No content below the lineNo content below the lineFeb. 4, 2015. Our first indication was a tweet from Focus_Taiwan, the English-language arm of Taiwans state-run Central News Agency.
Shortly after Focus Taiwans tweet, Storyful saw photographs and videos being shared on social media said to show wreckage from the plane in the Keelung River.
No content below the lineNo content below the lineThe first hint that there was video of the crash came from a tweet by @Missxoxo168.
@Missxoxo168 wrote in Chinese: Here are some screenshots of my dash camera.
Storyful approached these first photographs cautiously and searched for corroborating facts in the images.16
No content below the lineNo content below the lineLooking closely at the second image, we could see details on the planes fuselage and landing gear. Storyful journalists verified the model of the plane from details on flightradar24.com; it was an ATR 72600. We then checked the planes features against online images for ATR 72600s. 17
No content below the lineNo content below the lineA video filmed on the freeway showing the crash was then uploaded from Aaron Chens YouTube account, which corroborated the tweeted images from a different viewpoint.
No content below the lineNo content below the lineStoryful used the path of the highway, road markings and the surrounding buildings to confirm the location of the video on Google Maps street view mode. This placed the footage to within metres of the crash site where Taiwanese media were now livestreaming footage of the rescue operation.
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No content below the lineNo content below the lineA third video, uploaded to a YouTube channel under the name Xie Zhenyu (), showed the same scene but from a different angle with two cars in the foreground. With no additional photos or information about Xie Zhenyus YouTube/Google+ profile, this seemed like a dead end until Storyful found an earlier video on this account showing a username from a video game community.
This account helped Storyful track down the uploaders Facebook account, but this also revealed that the video was recorded by a friend of the uploader. Storyful contacted the owner of the video and obtained clearance for news organisations to use it.
No content below the lineNo content below the lineStoryful was then able to compare these videos with footage from @Missxoxo168s photos and video.
Taking the information we had gathered on the plane, location, time of day, weather conditions and the three different vantage points Storyful was able to verify these videos comprehensively. The fact that this exact moment was independently recorded by three people is one of the most remarkable elements about this story. 21
For more on Storyful and social media verification, visit:
Storyful.com
Youtube Newswire at YouTube.com/Newswire
First Draft coalition at FirstDraftNews.com
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Mandy [email protected]@mjenkins
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