• Findings from our global survey of archiving needs and practices Written by Ines Aisengart Menezes and Yvonne Ng A key part of WITNESS’s work is to help activists archive and preserve their videos so that they can be used to advance human rights, now and in the future. Over the years, we have consistently heard from partners and peers that archiving is a major gap […] WITNESS May 8, 2024
  • Sudan in the Dark: Lessons from the Frontlines It has been more than a year since the Sudanese armed forces arrested a number of civilian officials in the government and the Transitional Council, including Prime Minister Abdullah Hamdok and his wife in September 2021 before realizing him after a month. Demonstrations erupted soon after, demanding a return to the democratic path and the […] Mahmoud Elmasry March 13, 2023
  • How Gendered Disinformation in Nigeria Precludes Justice for Survivors of SGBV This blogpost is part two of a two part series. Part one here. Co-authored by Oluwaseun Ayodeji Osowobi The rise of technology, currently in its fourth revolution, has precipitated image-based abuse and online violence against women and girls. When misinformation and disinformation infiltrate the digital space, it spreads with horrifying speed in the absence of […] Nkemakonam Agunwa December 20, 2021
  • WITNESS and the C2PA Harms and Misuse Assessment Process Lee el artículo en español aquí. Co-authored by Sam Gregory. TLDR: Building on WITNESS’ focus on developing an authenticity infrastructure that works globally and supports civic journalism and human rights uses and values, we have been part of the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity specifications development effort. Right now we’re focused on identifying and […] Jacobo Castellanos December 2, 2021
  • Prioritize Non-Technological Methods for Combating Misinformation and Disinformation Detecting mis/disinfo Technology platforms are facing their biggest hurdle yet as they race to beat the fast-evolving forms of misinformation and disinformation perpetuated online. More pressing is the sophisticated technology deployed by mis/disinformation actors that make it increasingly difficult to detect and counter.  To address this, tech platforms have introduced a number of technological solutions […] Nkemakonam Agunwa October 14, 2021
  • How Biases Fuel Misinformation and Disinformation Misinformation and disinformation are arguably as old as humanity. The popular myth that bats are blind is scientifically inaccurate, and thus a misinformation. Research has proven that bats are anything but blind. They see in black and white and at night they have the potential to see even better than humans. The introduction of information […] Nkemakonam Agunwa July 22, 2021
  • WITNESS at RightsCon 2021 Online For the last decade, RightsCon has served as a forum for activists, civil society, and international stakeholders to gather around critical issues, questions, and possibilities that lay at the intersection of technology and human rights.  As a global organization committed to supporting communities to use video and technology for justice, WITNESS aligns with the central […] WITNESS June 2, 2021
  • Ugandan Elections: ‘We Made Sure the Cameras Kept Rolling for Safety’ Preceding the widely discredited Ugandan presidential elections of January 14 2021, the main opposition candidate Mr Robert Kyagulanyi “(popularly known as “Bobi Wine”)” urged his supporters to use their smartphones to record cases of poll fraud and violence. “They fear the camera. Use your camera as much as possible, go live wherever you can, expose, […] Loui Mainga April 14, 2021
  • فهم “المصدر” في التحقيقات مفتوحة المصدر نشرت لأول مرة في Open Global Rights بالإنجليزية، والإسبانية، والعربية في ٢١ يناير ٢٠٢١  كتبت : Libby McAvoy      عندما يظهر مقطع فيديو به درجة صادمة من العنف وينتشر على نطاق واسع على الإنترنت، مثل مقاطع فيديو قوات الأمن في العراق وهي تطلق “عبوات غاز مسيل للدموع تصيب رؤوس” المتظاهرين، فإن المحققين مفتوحي المصدر يمشطون المقطع باستخدام تقنيات مثل بحوث السوشيال ميديا […] WITNESS February 11, 2021
  • Centering the “source” in open source investigation Author: Libby McAvoy This article first appeared on Open Global Rights in English, Spanish, and Arabic on January 21, 2021.  When a viral video of shocking violence crops up online—such as videos of security forces in Iraq firing “head-splitting tear gas grenades” at protestors—open source investigators comb through the footage with techniques like sophisticated social media research and geolocation to verify […] WITNESS February 4, 2021
  • How Can U.S. Activists Confront Deepfakes and Disinformation? –December 2020 In the US, the 2020 presidential campaign has been called the “misinformation election.” But however significant the results may be, the problem of misinformation is much larger and more persistent than a single event. Recently WITNESS hosted a workshop on deepfakes and visual misinformation for activists and researchers based in the US, where […] WITNESS December 3, 2020
  • Tweet Chat: Archiving For Human Rights For Archives Month 2020, WITNESS Africa hosted a Twitter chat on archiving for the promotion and protection of human rights. In the chat, pertinent questions regarding the importance, practicalities and challenges to human rights archiving were put to Ayanda K of VIDERE and Yvonne Ng of WITNESS. Here is a recap of the chat on […] WITNESS November 3, 2020
  • COVID-19 Misinformation and Disinformation Responses: Sorting the Good from the Bad —May 2020: Sam Gregory, Dia Kayyali, Corin Faife. Last updated: 5/29 In this blog post we give an overview of some of the key trends in platform response to misinformation, disinformation and harmful speech during COVID-19, and develop a set of criteria through which the wide range of possible reactions can be assessed, using a framework […] WITNESS May 21, 2020
  • 4 new resources to help activists use video during COVID19 Filming and sharing documentation for human rights can expose injustices, put a spotlight on stories rarely heard, and create movements that hold perpetrators and decision-makers accountable. But if advocating for accountability is dangerous on a normal day, even more so during a global pandemic. This is why the WITNESS team is devoted to working with […] WITNESS May 7, 2020
  • Tracing trust: Why we must build authenticity infrastructure that works for all May 2020 TLDR: Coronavirus has dramatically increased the stakes for how we deal with issues of manipulated, fake and deceptive video and audio online, with governments, companies and publics responding to the need to discern truth from falsehood. One solution to misinformation and disinformation is to better track what is authentic, what is manipulated and […] Sam Gregory May 6, 2020