Getting started with social media research Always use social media for human rights advocacy in a secure, ethical and impactful way. You need to discover, organise, preserve and verify. The following questions are intended to provide guidance. Use them in your research, regardless of what platforms you are working with. What platforms and apps are dominant in your country or region? “Social media” is a broad term, and user applications vary across countries and regions. While Twitter may be popular in the United States, people in Egypt or Burundi may prefer to use Facebook. Recognising these differences is Photo: examples of the kind of words used on social media in breaking news situations, including “I” and “my” that could help you search for eye witnesses. Source: Deutsche Welle/Reveal Project crucial when tracking human rights incidents. What keywords and hashtags are used to share content on your topic? People communicate using specific keywords or hashtags. Follow these identifiers to discover content. Eg. users in Burundi used #1212massacre to describe violence of December 2015. Also, language used by witnesses may be more emotive than what you first search for. Can you narrow your search and filter results? Some social media platforms allow search by location, date or type of content. For instance, Tweetdeck, a tool for managing Twitter, enables you to search for images and video only, while excluding retweets. You can also create lists of trusted users to monitor content selectively. 33