- How To Batch Export Videos from Telegram Telegram is a key platform for sharing audiovisual media that document human rights abuses – whether it is captured by officials, bystanders, journalists, activists, or perpetrators and their supporters. For example, it has been widely used by news outlets and officials in Ukraine to share information, by activists in Hong Kong to communicate and organize, […]
- Downloading Livestreams and Other Videos from Social Media If you’re looking for how to film a livestream yourself, go here. Viewers around the world are witnessing in real-time as hundreds of thousands of people in Myanmar take to the streets to oppose the 2021 military coup. Activists’ and ordinary people’s livestreams on Facebook and other platforms are capturing mass protests, arrests, and violence […]
- Truth, lies and social media accountability in 2021 In 2021, critical issues at the intersection of social media, accountability, and human rights are finally at the center of global public discussion. It took the attempted insurrection at the US Capitol to lead to social media platforms finally suspending former President Donald Trump’s accounts and forcing a discussion about online content, hate and violence. […]
- Archivists’ Victory over Overbroad Copyright Claim A joint statement from Human Rights Watch, Mnemonic, and WITNESS, with lead authoring by Deborah Brown, Senior Researcher and Advocate on Digital Rights, and Gabriela Ivens, Head of Open Source Research, at Human Rights Watch. November 25, 2020 A decision by GitHub, a leading software development platform, to reinstate a popular free software tool for downloading videos, […]
- 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 […]
- The Adobe Content Authenticity Initiative approach to authenticity infrastructure against media manipulation Launch of the Content Authenticity Initiative White Paper Today the Content Authenticity Initiative (CAI) spearheaded by Adobe, Twitter and the New York Times publishes its White Paper. WITNESS is a co-author on the paper and has been part of the Working Group developing the standards alongside other groups including TruePic, Microsoft, the BBC, CBC and […]
- Last Month in Video: August When WITNESS was founded in 1992, we wanted to get cameras in people’s hands. This wasn’t an easy task- at the time, cameras weren’t in every household, they weren’t cheap, and it wasn’t instinctive for people to reach for their camera. Now, video is everywhere, and it’s being made by everyone with a cell phone. […]
- Recording Resistance We interviewed British filmmaker Max Stahl about his role in documenting and preserving footage of the Santa Cruz Massacre, and how his visual account helped propel Timor-Leste back into the world spotlight.
- Digitizing WITNESS Videotapes Through a Community Partnership Digitizing videotape collections can be a lot of work, but it can be made more manageable by selecting and prioritizing, doing what you can in-house, and collaborating and sharing resources within a community.
- Ethical Wednesdays: Archives and Our Ethical Guidelines for Using Eyewitness Videos As archives start to collect, provide access to, and present social media collections, many ethical issues arise that need to be addressed.
- Do We Need a Dedicated Repository for Human Rights Media? A dedicated online video-sharing site or database could show the breadth and scale of human rights violations worldwide, and enable coordinated action.
- An Interview with Pamela Yates About the Impact of “Granito” Part of a series featuring the 2014 BritDoc Impact Award winners, we interview Pamela Yates about Granito which investigates how archival footage was used as evidence to bring an indictment against a former Guatemalan dictator.
- List of Free or Low-cost Tools and Resources for Video Activists This list of free or low-cost tools and resources for video activists is curated from participants who joined our Live Video Archive #AskMeAnything event on our Facebook page.
- WITNESS Archiving Guide Receives Award from Society of American Archivists The Activists' Guide to Archiving Video wins the Preservation Publication Award from the Society of American Archivists.
- Everything Needs to Change, So Everything Can Stay the Same: Challenges to Keeping Online Video Accessible Keeping a website online and continuously accessible to the public, whether its a human rights archive or a piece of art, is not merely a question of keeping the power switch on. Our senior archivist discusses some ways to prepare for the inevitable challenge of tech obsolescence.
