FOUR STEPS VERIFYING EYEWITNESS VIDEO STEP 1 Preserve The Video & Document The Verification Process If you believe the video may be valuable for media advocacy, human rights advocacy or investigations, it is important to preserve the video along with documentation of your process for verifying that it is authentic footage of a particular event on a specific date and time. Download the video: Online videos can swiftly disappear, especially ones that are controversial or graphic. If an online video contains important information about a human rights issue, save a copy of the video, along with information included with the original upload site such as the user, title, and description. If the video is removed or made private by the user, bear in mind that that may be due to security concerns for the filmer, uploader, or individuals who appear in the video. STEP 2 Is The Video The Original Upload? The closer you can get to an original video file, the higher the likelihood is that you can trust that its description is accurate. Videos are often re-uploaded to YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms with misleading titles, descriptions, edits, and/or translations by individuals who had nothing to do with filming them. Here are a few ways to determine if a video is the original upload: Google reverse image search: Copy the video’s thumbnail image and upload it to Google image search1 to see if that image has appeared previously on the Internet. If the video is on YouTube, an easy way to do this is to paste the url into Amnesty International’s YouTube Data Viewer,2 which automatically extracts the thumbnail images and plugs them into a Google reverse image search. If the image shows up in old articles that result from the image search, you’ll know that the video was not filmed recently. Uploader's online history: Do you have good reason to believe the uploader filmed or uploaded the original footage, or does it appear that the person uploads other people’s videos? Look at other videos uploaded to the same account. Are they from the same location? In the same style? When did the person begin uploading videos? Try finding the uploader’s other online profiles, such as a website, Facebook page, or Twitter page. Do they indicate that the uploader is in the location the video purports to be from? This can also give you a sense of the uploader’s affiliations and any political agenda s/he may have. Contact the uploader: If possible, contact the uploader to ask for further information about the video. By communicating with the uploader, you can possibly find versions of the video closer to the original, or even acquire a copy of the original digital video file. Be aware that in high-risk scenarios the uploader may intentionally obscure his or her identity and resist divulging information about the filming of the video. 173 VIDEO AS EVIDENCE: VERIFYING EYEWITNESS VIDEO V 2.0 SHARING Document the verification process: As you go through the process outlined below, document how you determined that the video was filmed at a particular location, date, and time and is of a specific event. Archive the documentation with the saved video file.