But even with these official verification programs in place, there is no quick way of checking whether an account is real, other than painstaking checks on all of the details available on the profile. Items to review include linked websites, location, previous pictures and videos, previous status updates or tweets. Who are their friends or followers? Who are they following? Do they feature on anyone else’s lists? If you’re looking at a piece of rich content, such as a photo or video, one of the first questions is whether this is the original piece of footage or picture. Using reverse image search tools such as TinEye or Google Images3 you can find out whether it has been posted online previously. (For more detail on using these tools, see Chapter 4 of this book.) While deliberate hoaxes are rare, they do happen. In recent years there have been relatively harmless hoax videos produced by PR companies looking for publicity11, and by students completing an end-of-term assignment12. There have also been deliberate attempts to create false content, particularly in Syria and Egypt, where discrediting the “enemy” can be achieved via reputable-looking content shared on social media channels. Techniques include creating a false, but identical-looking website and claiming responsibility for a bomb attack13, or staging a gruesome incident and blaming the other side. Manipulation is relatively easy to do today, and whether you’re Nancy Pelosi trying to create a photograph of all female Congresswomen14 even when some of them are late, or a Syrian activist group sharing video of a man appearing to be buried alive15, any journalist or humanitarian professional has to start off by assuming a piece of UGC is false. (See Chapter 5 of this book for more detail about verifying video.) 2. Confirming the source The ultimate goal when attempting to verify UGC is to identify the original uploader and get in touch with them. In that conversation, the key questions involve discovering where someone was standing when they took the footage, what they could see, and the type of camera used to record the footage. (These questions provide the essential data to answer Steve Buttry’s essential “How do you know that?” test outlined in the previous chapter.) 29