• Challenge the sources by asking “How do you know that?” and “How else do you know that?” • Triangulate what they provide with other credible sources including documentations such as photos and audio/video recordings. • Ask yourself, “Do I know enough to verify?” Are you knowledgeable enough about the topics that require understanding of cultural, ethnical, religious complexities? • Collaborate with team members and experts; don’t go it alone. Verifying user-generated content • Start from the assumption that the content is inaccurate or been scraped, sliced, diced, duplicated and/or reposted with different context. • Follow these steps when verifying UGC: • °° Identify and verify the original source and the content (including location, date and approximate time). °° Triangulate and challenge the source. °° Obtain permission from the author/originator to use the content (photos, videos, audio). Always gather information about the uploaders, and verify as much as possible before contacting and asking them directly whether they are indeed victims, witnesses or the creator of the content. 1. Identify and verify the original source and the content (including location, date and approximate time). Provenance The first step of UGC verification is to identify the original content, be it a tweet, image, video, text message, etc. Some questions to start with: • Can you find the same or similar posts/content elsewhere online? • When was the first version of it uploaded/filmed/shared? • Can you identify the location? Was the UGC geotagged? • Are any websites linked from the content? • Can you identify the person who shared/uploaded the UGC, and contact them for more information? (See the “Source” section below.) When dealing with images and videos, use Google Image Search or TinEye to perform a reverse image/video thumbnail search. If several links to the same image pop up, click on “view other sizes” to find the highest resolution/size, which usually is the original image. For verifying provenance of images: • Use Google Image Search or TinEye to perform a reverse image search. If several links to the same image pop up, click on “view other sizes” to find the highest resolution/size which usu- 98