The Checklist: Catch up!

The Checklist is a weekly newsletter of links, case studies and research around verification and user-generated content, brought to you by the Checkdesk team.

This is a catch-up post for First Draft, compiling some of the best links featured in the latest five editions.

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Reverse Image Search Edition
— May 5, 2015

Debunking fakes from Baltimore, humanitarian verification in Nepal, news MOOC from University of Hong Kong, and more.

  1. How to Be a Good Internet Citizen During Breaking News, from Wired
  2. TIL: How to find the time a photo was shared on Instagram, from Sarah Marshall
  3. The viral choice: too good to check — or too good not to debunk?, from Paul Bradshaw
  4. Online Fact-Checking Tool Gets a Big Test with Nepal Earthquake, from MIT Technology Review
  5. Debunk of the Week: FOX Affiliate ends up on the wrong continent (should have used reverse image search…..)*, from Fox13 Memphis

Can you spot what’s wrong with the image below? Test your reverse image search skills!

*but they did issue an apology.

Champagne Austerity Edition
- May 14, 2015

UK election debunk, psychology of rumors, new Twitter investigation tool, and more.

  1. Eyewitness Media: more must be done to raise awareness around the rights of and responsibilities towards eyewitnesses, from Eyewitness Media Hub
  2. The first defense against needless fear is to closely examine the scary claim, from Cleveland.com
  3. Rumor Has It: The Psychology Of Why We Still Believe In Debunked Myths, from Medical Daily
  4. Surveillance planes spotted in the sky for days after West Baltimore rioting, from the Washington Post
  5. Africa Check key to identifying false claims during Ebola crisis, elections, from IJNET
  6. Tool of the Week: Who Tweeted It First, from Ctrl-Q
  7. Debunk of the Week: Post-election celebrations at 11 Downing Street?

This photo was shared on Facebook and Twitter following the Conservative victory in the UK’s general election, prompting cries of hypocrisy over public spending cuts championed by the Conservative government.

As noted in the comment thread here (crowdsourced debunking in action!) the photo is actually from 2004, when Labour were in power in the UK.

Arab Saints Edition
- May 20, 2015

Geolocation, bullsh*t news specialists, verifying video, and more.

  1. Geo-location expert Eliot Higgins shows how he tracked the origin of the missile launcher that took down MH17, from 60 minutes
  2. The King of Bullsh*t News, from Buzzfeed
  3. How Citizen Journalists Tap Silk to Tell Underreported Stories, from PBS
  4. Ukraine’s Activists Debunk Russian Myths on Crimea, from Global Voices
  5. Debunk of the Week: Media gets it wrong on Arab saints, from Beirut Report

Independent Lebanese journalist Habib Battah takes some prominent UK and US media outlets to task over some ill-researched claims regarding a recent historic beatification.

Screenshot via Beirut Report.

Double Rainbow Edition
- May 27, 2015

Exposing Assad, selective editing, livestreaming for justice, and more.

  1. Did a US report really applaud Sisi’s war on terror?, from Mada Masr
  2. Inside Storyful: Syrian helicopter crash exposes hidden view of Assad’s barrel-bomb campaign, from Storyful
  3. Verification cartoon of the week: Duty, from Loading Artist
  4. How We Can Use Livestreaming Apps to Promote Justice, from Wired
  5. Advanced Geolocation: Translation + Mirroring + Mashups, from Bellingcat
  6. Debunk of the week: Dublin Double Rainbow Debunk, from @bowlerderek

Sadly this one isn’t real — though notice the RTs & favourites of the original tweets vs. the debunk.

Debunk of the week via@BowlerDerek

Warning! Falling Rocks! Edition
- June 11, 2015

New apps, debunks galore, meteorological misinformation and more.

  1. Verifeye Media wants to bring ethics back into eyewitness news, from Journalism.co.uk
  2. The Age of Disinformation (featuring a flooding debunk), from James Spann
  3. Debunks Galore: The paracetamol challenge, Tinder causing STDs and human trafficking at Hobby Lobby, from the Washington Post
  4. Rumor-detection software detects, corrects erroneous claims on Twitter, from Homeland Security Newswire
  5. How to Find Historical Imagery of Russia’s Faked Satellite Photos, from Bellingcat
  6. From the Archive: King Abdullah vs. ISIS? Not so fast, from Reported.ly
  7. Real Photo of the Week: Rocks in the sky — a geological mystery, from the Guardian

Twitter was, well, all atwitter as photos of Jordan’s King Abdullah preparing for combat go viral on social media. But the actual context behind the photos tell a very different story.

David Quentin. The series was first published in issue 36 of Five Dials

It’s real! More examples (and the full explanation…) here.

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