January 12 2023 GM - Revision history

Victoria: /* Notes */

2023-01-17T13:30:40Z

Notes

← Older revision		Revision as of 13:30, 17 January 2023
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	**I feel really strongly that you shouldn't need a specific technical background to begin exploring open source investigations (I certainly didn't). I think the beauty of this work is in finding research partners with complimentary skills. That's a big part of why I've been able to learn what I know now. Some people will code, others will map, or interview, or endlessly scrub the web. You don't need any one skill to bring value to the space.		**I feel really strongly that you shouldn't need a specific technical background to begin exploring open source investigations (I certainly didn't). I think the beauty of this work is in finding research partners with complimentary skills. That's a big part of why I've been able to learn what I know now. Some people will code, others will map, or interview, or endlessly scrub the web. You don't need any one skill to bring value to the space.
	**There is also the myth of the #OSINT "sofa sleuth" who conducts high stakes investigations from their bedroom. This might be true in a few exceptional circumstances. Working for Amnesty we get a lot of professional support e.g. psycho social support, which mitigates the risks of open source such as secondary stress and trauma or security threats.		**There is also the myth of the #OSINT "sofa sleuth" who conducts high stakes investigations from their bedroom. This might be true in a few exceptional circumstances. Working for Amnesty we get a lot of professional support e.g. psycho social support, which mitigates the risks of open source such as secondary stress and trauma or security threats.
	*~~Ryan~~:		*Ray:
	**I’ve been doing open source research on human rights issues for 5 years, first volunteering for Amnesty as part of our Digital Verification Corps when I was at university, and then for the past 18 months as an Open Source Researcher in the Evidence Lab. I also teach the ethics, challenges and practicalities of open source research at the University of Cambridge, the UK’s National Centre for Research Methods and MIT. One part of my job I’m really passionate about is sharing knowledge and having open discussions about the tensions and difficulties of doing the work we do.		**I’ve been doing open source research on human rights issues for 5 years, first volunteering for Amnesty as part of our Digital Verification Corps when I was at university, and then for the past 18 months as an Open Source Researcher in the Evidence Lab. I also teach the ethics, challenges and practicalities of open source research at the University of Cambridge, the UK’s National Centre for Research Methods and MIT. One part of my job I’m really passionate about is sharing knowledge and having open discussions about the tensions and difficulties of doing the work we do.
	**For me, open source is a way of using openly accessible digital sources to conduct research into a given topic. Most commonly it’s thought of in terms of photos and videos, but - especially in the Evidence Lab - it can mean anything from satellite imagery and large data sets (like [https://acleddata.com/ ACLED]) to pollution data and text analysis.		**For me, open source is a way of using openly accessible digital sources to conduct research into a given topic. Most commonly it’s thought of in terms of photos and videos, but - especially in the Evidence Lab - it can mean anything from satellite imagery and large data sets (like [https://acleddata.com/ ACLED]) to pollution data and text analysis.
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	===== '''What are the major methodological challenges about open source (these can be ethical, operational, etc)?''' =====		===== '''What are the major methodological challenges about open source (these can be ethical, operational, etc)?''' =====
	*~~Sophia~~ says that running a crowdsourcing/solving project, one of the biggest challenges for me is finding a research question that fits. We need a big problem that can be broken down into many simple tasks, and does not contain any graphic or otherwise traumatic content. A good example of this was Decode Surveillance NYC, where 7K volunteers helped us count and categorize CCTV cameras on Google Street View. But we scope lots of projects before finding one that could work.		*Sophie says that running a crowdsourcing/solving project, one of the biggest challenges for me is finding a research question that fits. We need a big problem that can be broken down into many simple tasks, and does not contain any graphic or otherwise traumatic content. A good example of this was Decode Surveillance NYC, where 7K volunteers helped us count and categorize CCTV cameras on Google Street View. But we scope lots of projects before finding one that could work.
	*Stella adds that, right now, she is thinking A LOT about overconfidence in digital evidence - We live in a world where people believe what they see. In the professional community we occupy, I’ve seen far too many times that people are fixated on the minutiae of videos (i.e. giving the exact time something happened) and lose sight of the implications of the work. For example, it may be possible to provide an exact play-by-play of how an officer involved shooting, but does that matter if you traumatize your audience and retraumatize the victims by publishing that footage? I see a lot of emphasis on “truth” and “verification” in mainstream open source right now, and fewer questions of “should we be applying these methods in these ways?” This has so many implications for privacy in a world where open source information is constantly being created about all of us.		*Stella adds that, right now, she is thinking A LOT about overconfidence in digital evidence - We live in a world where people believe what they see. In the professional community we occupy, I’ve seen far too many times that people are fixated on the minutiae of videos (i.e. giving the exact time something happened) and lose sight of the implications of the work. For example, it may be possible to provide an exact play-by-play of how an officer involved shooting, but does that matter if you traumatize your audience and retraumatize the victims by publishing that footage? I see a lot of emphasis on “truth” and “verification” in mainstream open source right now, and fewer questions of “should we be applying these methods in these ways?” This has so many implications for privacy in a world where open source information is constantly being created about all of us.
	*To build on what Stella’s mentioned, one methodological challenge Ray struggles with on a daily basis is how you decide on the threshold of “verified” for a piece of content. When collaborating with others, this is often framed as the ‘goal’ of our research, as it’s a commonly used term and part of the wider community’s understanding of what open source is.		*To build on what Stella’s mentioned, one methodological challenge Ray struggles with on a daily basis is how you decide on the threshold of “verified” for a piece of content. When collaborating with others, this is often framed as the ‘goal’ of our research, as it’s a commonly used term and part of the wider community’s understanding of what open source is.

Victoria: /* Notes */

2023-01-16T11:34:56Z

Notes

Show changes

Victoria at 15:27, 15 December 2022

2022-12-15T15:27:18Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:27, 15 December 2022
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			__NOTOC__
			{\|class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px; width: 20%; background-color:#A9D743;"

			\| '''Glitter Meetups'''
			* [[Glitter Meetup\|What are Glitter Meetups]]
			* [[Community Updates\|Notes from Past Glitter Meetups]]
			* [[Calendar of Events\|Virtual Events Calendar]]
			* [[IFF Mattermost\|Join the TCU Mattermost]]
			\|}

	Glitter Meetup is the weekly town hall of the Internet Freedom community at the IF Square on the TCU Mattermost, at 9am EST / 2pm UTC. Do you need an invite? Learn how to get one [[IFF Mattermost\|here]].		Glitter Meetup is the weekly town hall of the Internet Freedom community at the IF Square on the TCU Mattermost, at 9am EST / 2pm UTC. Do you need an invite? Learn how to get one [[IFF Mattermost\|here]].

Victoria: /* Notes */

2022-12-15T15:23:37Z

Notes

← Older revision		Revision as of 15:23, 15 December 2022
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	'''Bio:''' Stella Cooper and Ray Adams Row Farr who are the frontline of the Evidence Lab’s research, and Marija Ristic who leads the Digital Verification Corps (the student volunteer cohort) alongside Sophie Dyer, who is visual researcher and Tactical Research Advisor at Amnesty will speak with each other and us on the ways in which we could embed OSINT in our work from feminist and ethical perspectives.		'''Bio:''' Stella Cooper and Ray Adams Row Farr who are the frontline of the Evidence Lab’s research, and Marija Ristic who leads the Digital Verification Corps (the student volunteer cohort) alongside Sophie Dyer, who is visual researcher and Tactical Research Advisor at Amnesty will speak with each other and us on the ways in which we could embed OSINT in our work from feminist and ethical perspectives.
	==Notes==		==Notes==
			''Notes will be posted here''

Victoria: Created page with "Glitter Meetup is the weekly town hall of the Internet Freedom community at the IF Square on the TCU Mattermost, at 9am EST / 2pm UTC. Do you need an invite? Learn how to get one here. * '''Date:''' Thursday, January 12th * '''Time:''' 9am EST / 2pm UTC * '''Who:''' Stella Cooper, Ray Adams Row Farr, Marija Ristic, and Sophie Dyer * '''Moderator:''' Islam * '''Where:''' On TCU Mattermost "IF Square" Channel. **Don't have an account to the TCU Mattermo..."

2022-12-15T15:21:57Z

Created page with "Glitter Meetup is the weekly town hall of the Internet Freedom community at the IF Square on the TCU Mattermost, at 9am EST / 2pm UTC. Do you need an invite? Learn how to get one here. * '''Date:''' Thursday, January 12th * '''Time:''' 9am EST / 2pm UTC * '''Who:''' Stella Cooper, Ray Adams Row Farr, Marija Ristic, and Sophie Dyer * '''Moderator:''' Islam * '''Where:''' On TCU Mattermost "IF Square" Channel. **Don't have an account to the TCU Mattermo..."

New page

Glitter Meetup is the weekly town hall of the Internet Freedom community at the IF Square on the TCU Mattermost, at 9am EST / 2pm UTC. Do you need an invite? Learn how to get one [[IFF Mattermost|here]].

* '''Date:''' Thursday, January 12th
* '''Time:''' 9am EST / 2pm UTC
* '''Who:''' Stella Cooper, Ray Adams Row Farr, Marija Ristic, and Sophie Dyer
* '''Moderator:''' Islam
* '''Where:''' On TCU Mattermost "IF Square" Channel.
**Don't have an account to the TCU Mattermost? [[IFF Mattermost|you can request one following the directions here.]]

==== '''AMA Evidence Lab: Feminist and Ethical Perspectives on OSINT''' ====
For this GM, we’re meeting with Amnesty’s Evidence Lab frontlines where you will have the space to ask any questions about open source research methodologies, tactics, and ethicalities. Using open source-research excavated data in humanitarian, human rights, and open source investigations has been on the rise, and in several contexts, such as the MENA, the question of ethics is integral to how data is collected and presented. This is a chance for everyone to learn more about this work, and an opportunity to contribute to several questions that frontlines researchers deal with.

'''Bio:''' Stella Cooper and Ray Adams Row Farr who are the frontline of the Evidence Lab’s research, and Marija Ristic who leads the Digital Verification Corps (the student volunteer cohort) alongside Sophie Dyer, who is visual researcher and Tactical Research Advisor at Amnesty will speak with each other and us on the ways in which we could embed OSINT in our work from feminist and ethical perspectives.
==Notes==