Published: 2 July 2020
Laurens Vreekamp's top tips from Google News Lab:
1. Check & tick the boxes:
- Provenance: Is it the original piece of content?
- Source: Who captured it?
- Location: Where was it captured?
- Date & Time: When was it captured?
- Motivation: Why was it captured?
2. Determine the motivation:
- Poor journalism; parody; provoke or 'punk'; passion; partisanship; profit; political influence; propaganda.
3. Use the verification tools:
- Fact check tools:
- Reverse image: Tineye.com; RevEye extension; images.google.com.
- Reverse video: inVid / weverify.com; Watchframebyframe.com
- Monitor and analysis: Hoaxy; First tweet; Versionista.com; Visualping.io
- Google Earth for advanced geolocation.
Ben Strick's top tips when using Google Earth for geolocation, past imagery and chronolocation:
1. Always look at historical imagery:
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This adds information and gives a true understanding of what's happening on the ground. This was part of the verification methods used in 蜜芽传媒 Africa Eye's award-winning Sudan's livestream massacre.
2. Utilize pinning:
- Bookmarking areas using Google Earth can help map out trends.
3. Use the ruler (km, m, cm):
- Particularly useful when needing to identify drones on airstrips by cross-referencing known wing spans.
4. Geolocation verifies and adds details:
- Being able to pinpoint the location of an incident can initiate purposeful investigation.
5. Get creative:
- Check the whole image or video for any unusual occurrence and see where it leads.