VerificationGetting it right

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Basics• Develop or find and use human sources• Verify source and content they provide• Challenge sources: “How do you know that?”• Beware of things that look too good to be true• Triangulate what’s provided with credible sources

(documents, photos, videos, etc.)• Ask yourself: “Do I know enough to verify?”• Communicate and collaborate with team. Don’t go it alone

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Content• Identify and verify original source and content (location, date,

time)• Can you find the content elsewhere online? Triangulate• Can you identify the person who shared/uploaded the content

and contact them for more information?• Does the weather for that day match what you’re seeing in

image/video?• Are there any identifying elements? (clocks, TVs, etc.)• Use Google street view/maps/satellite imagery to help verify

locations

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Source• Is person who shared content a reliable source?• Check person’s social media accounts (Twitter, Google+, etc.) • How active are they on social media?• How long have their accounts existed?• Check biographical information on accounts • Who are their friends and followers?• Who do they interact with?• Check professional background on sites like Linkedin• Challenge source (How do you know that?)

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Obtain permission• Be clear about which image/video you wish to use• Explain how it will be used• Clarify how the person wishes to be credited

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Protect brand• Only takes one serious error, falling for Internet hoax, to

damage reputation• When mistake happens, respond quickly, correct swiftly

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VERIFICATION TOOLS

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Tools: Verifying identity• AnyWho: Free white pages directory, reverse look-up function• AllAreaCodes: Look up any name and address listed against a

phone number • Facebook Graph Search: Use to locate people. Don’t need to

know name of person you’re searching for. Can search based on other known criteria such as location, occupation and age.

• GeoSocial Footprint: Tracks the users’ location “footprint” created from GPS enabled tweets, social check ins, etc.

• Hoverme: Plug-in for Google Chrome reveals social media users’ profiles on other networks from their Facebook news feed

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Tools: Verifying identity• Linkedin: Use to track individual down through their work

history and connections. Check their credentials• Muck Rack: lists thousands of journalists on Twitter,

Facebook, Tumblr, Quora, Google+, LinkedIn who are vetted by a team of Muck Rack editors.

• Numberway: a directory of international phone books• Person Finder: open source databank for individuals to post

and search for the status of people affected by a disaster. Whenever a large scale disaster happens, the Google Crisis Team sets up a person finder

• When did you join Twitter: Check account’s creation date

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Tools: Verifying identity• Pipl.com: Comprehensive search of individual’s Internet

footprint (social media accounts, public records, etc.)• Rapportive: Gmail plugin gives users a profile on their

contacts, including social media accounts, location, employment

• Spokeo: a people search engine that can find individuals by name, email, phone or username. Results include contact details, occupation, education, marital status, economic profile, etc.

• WebMii: searches for weblinks that match an individual’s name, or can identify unspecified individuals by keyword

• WHOIS: finds the registered users of a domain name and details the date of registration, location and contact details of the registrant or assignee

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Tools: Verifying places• Flikr: search for geolocated photos• free-ocr.com: extracts text from images that can then be put

into Google translate or searched on other mapping resources• Google Maps: online map that provides high-resolution aerial

or satellite imagery covering most of the Earth. Number of viewing options

• Google Translate: can be used to uncover location clues (ie. signs) written in other languages

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Tools: Verifying places• Météo-France: France’s meteorological agency provides free

Europe focused radar and satellite images, maps and climate modeling data

• NASA Earth Observatory: Repository of global data imagery, with free maps, images and datasets

• Panoramio: photo-sharing website carrying millions of geolocated images uploaded to a Google Maps layer

• Picasa: search for geolocated photos

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Tools: Verifying places• United States ZIP Codes: an online map of the United States

categorized according to ZIP code. Users can search for a specific ZIP code. Provides information about zip code (stats, demographics, list of high schools, etc.)

• Wikimapia: crowsourced version of Google maps containing points of interest and descriptions

• Wolfram Alpha: a computational answer engine that provides direct, factual answers and relevant visualizations

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Tools: verifying images• Findexif.com: Can be used to reveal EXIF information• Foto Forensics: Website uses error level analysis (ELA) to

indicate parts of an image that might have been altered. ELA looks for differences in quality levels in the image, highlighting where alterations might have been made

• Google Search by Image: By uploading or entering an image’s URL, users can find content such as related or similar images, websites and other pages using the specific image

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Tools: verifying images• Jeffrey’s Exif Viewer: Provides the Exchangeable Image File

(EXIF) information of a digital photo (date, camera settings, GPS location)

• JPEGSnoop: Free Windows-only application that can detect whether an image has been edited. Can open AVI, DNG, PDF, THM and embedded JPEG files. Also retrieves metadata including: date, camera type, lens settings, etc.

• TinEye: Reverse image search. Find out where an image originated, how it is used, whether modified versions exist and if there are higher resolution copies

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Tools: Verifying web pages • Whois Lookup: Gives date a page was created and information

about its creator• Internet Archive: Check to see changes made to website• Diigo: Are people bookmarking this page using Diigo? Who's

bookmarking it? etc.• Delicious: Another bookmarking service

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Tools: Other tools • Snopes: Site debunks (or verifies) info that circulates online.• AIDR platform: Uses human and computer monitoring to

weed out rumors on Twitter• Ban.jo: Aggregates social media into one platform. Can cross-

check images and events against each other• HuriSearch: Search content from over 5,000 human rights

related Web pages and filter to find verifiable sources• Verily platform: Users can ask specific questions and get UCG

evidence for and against• SearchSystems.net: International directory of free public

records

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Tools: Other tools • InformaCam: App uses metadata to reveal the time, date and

location of photos or videos • YouTube Face Blur: Developed out of concern for the

anonymity of individuals who appear in videos in high-risk situations, this tool allows users to blur faces of people who appear in videos they upload. To use, after uploading video, go to Enhancements and then Special Effects. There you can choose to blur all faces in the video.

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Follow me

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Contact

Buffy AndrewsAssistant Managing EditorFeatures and Niche PubsSocial Media Coordinator

York Daily Record Email: Buffy@ydrcomPhone: 717-771-2052

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