• For images and video, look (and listen) for any identifying elements that indicate date/time, such as clocks, television screens, newspaper pages, etc. Location Another crucial aspect of verification is to identify the location of the content: • Does the content include automated geolocation information? (Services such as Flickr, Picasa and Twitter offer the option of including location, though it is not foolproof.) • Find reference points to compare with satellite imagery and geolocated photographs, such as: °° Signs/lettering on buildings, street signs, car registration plates, billboards, etc. Use Google Translate or free.orc.com for online translation. °° Distinctive streetscape/landscape such as mountain range, line of trees, cliffs, rivers, etc. °° Landmarks and buildings such as churches, minarets, stadiums, bridges, etc. • Use Google Street View or Google Maps’ “Photos” function to check if geolocated photographs match the image/video location. • Use Google Earth to examine older images/videos, as it provides a history of satellite images. Use Google Earth’s terrain view. • Use Wikimapia, the crowdsourced version of Google Maps, to identify landmarks. °° Weather conditions such as sunlight or shadows to find approximate time of day. Use Wolfram Alpha to search weather reports at specific time and place. °° License/number plates on vehicles °° Clothing For Videos: • Examine the language(s) spoken in the video. Check if accents and dialects match up with the geographical location. Beware that Google Translate does not give correct translation for some languages. Ask those who speak the language for support. • Are video descriptions consistent and mostly from a specific location? • Are videos dated? • If videos on the account use a logo, is this logo consistent across the videos? Does it match the avatar on the YouTube or Vimeo account? • Does the uploader “scrape” videos from news organizations and other YouTube accounts, or do they upload solely user-generated content? • Does the uploader write in slang or dialect that is identifiable in the video’s narration? • Are the videos on this account of a consistent quality? (On YouTube go to Settings and then Quality to determine the best quality available.) • Do video descriptions have file extensions such as .AVI or .MP4 in the video title? This can indicate the video was uploaded directly from a device. • Does the description of a YouTube video read: “Uploaded via YouTube Capture”? This may indicate the video was filmed on a smartphone. 101