In the Bellingcat Documentary, the current state of human perceptions of online content is described as an “emotional relationship to information.” From the average citizen to a world leader, how are we controlling and monitoring information in a way that tells the true story, instead of watching content echo back to us our existing beliefs? Something that permeated this week’s readings was the idea of how accountability and evolving interpretation techniques defined the practices of OSINT.

 

Something that struck me was how OSINT journalism was doing the job of traditional media outlets in a way that exceeded the current abilities of those outlets. For example, forensic techniques of an independent organization like Bellingcat interpret information and guide readers in a way that only those active in open-source investigations could do.

 

I enjoyed learning about the specific approaches used that have revolutionized the idea of accountability for global human rights in modern warfare. For example, the idea of creating networks of verified identities based on tattoos, birthmarks, freckle patterns, and scars was fascinating.  The Forbes piece also spotlit a “gamified” crowdsourcing approach to collecting smartphone footage of the war in Ukraine that is helping officials piece together attacks, by upping the quantity and quality of footage submitted.

 

In the current age of warfare, there is an unprecedented speed in which information spreads and therefore gathering it needs to match that speed. OSINT functions as the remedy to this: gaining a well-rounded image about what is happening so that there is a data-based foundation.

 

This data-based foundation rested at the core of the implications of how open-source reporting could be applied to the sphere of the International Criminal Court (ICC). I was largely unaware about how difficult war-crimes cases are to prosecute, and of the fractures that exist within the structures of the ICC. I enjoyed the optimistic view of seeing how journalists’ work in acquiring citizen evidence is reinventing modern warfare and accountability in international justice.

 

Thinking about the work of open-source journalists and the work’s application to international war accountability, learning about this world left me with questions about preserving the integrity and reliability of open-source investigations, specifically in how world leaders and press outlets can undermine sources used in OSINT and their work. As social media and video content becomes increasingly malleable and prone to convincing manipulation (e.g. deepfakes, AI-generated content, photo editing), how will open-source journalists work to maintain the integrity of their sources and gain trust? Are there new techniques that Bellingcat is developing in this changing technological landscape?

 

Building upon the idea of content manipulation, I wonder if upon the further growth and expansion of OSINT and its notoriety that content may be manipulated and weaponized to breed falsehoods in the investigations. For example, what if traceable aspects of an individual (scars/tattoos) are manipulated to mislead journalists?  In this kind of situation, how does the field adapt? Would the rise of OSINT and the spread of its methods potentially bring about a new era of misinformation warfare?