Current Affairs Ukraine

[Mutzo Nutzo]

I hold them up as champions of freedom and liberty.

Still waiting for somebody to prove otherwise.

Im waiting.

Yeah but you’re a sock puppet

 

[tsubaki]

Intelligence is like a jigsaw - you pull pieces from everywhere and try and make a picture from it.

OSINT data is another piece of the puzzle - it can be checked, cross referenced and either discarded or used.

Thing is having a good handle on reputable sources of OSINT. There’s good and there’s Jarg - it’s knowing where to look.

It’s not perfect by any means but it’s a very useful tool if used carefully.

If an intelligence source wanted to leak information either true or false then yes they could and would use OSINT, but they’d also use regular press and media channels in parallel - so again it’s about data authenticity and integrity.

Know your sources and stick with them

That’s how intelligence and security agencies obtain OSINT, but that’s not what we are talking about here.

It’s sites and individuals who purport to be independent who tell us what’s going on based on data they claimed to have obtained or discovered for themselves. They often do work in parallel with traditional media, too (look how many Daily Mail articles originate from them for example).

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

That’s how intelligence and security agencies obtain OSINT, but that’s not what we are talking about here.

It’s sites and individuals who purport to be independent who tell us what’s going on based on data they claimed to have obtained or discovered for themselves. They often do work in parallel with traditional media, too (look how many Daily Mail articles originate from them for example).

But surely that’s were the community comes into play. Data can and is cross-checked, verified or outright rejected.

This isn’t just about a single source it’s as its name suggests Open.

You push out false, mis-leading or biased data then you will be called out over it.

The daily Mail is a good example of poor quality journalism using poor sources of data. Like I said earlier it’s about data integrity and authenticity snd you only get that from reputable fact-checked sources,

There’s good and bad OSINT and personally I think it’d be naive to label all under the same banner.

 

[Goat]

But surely that’s were the community comes into play. Data can and is cross-checked, verified or outright rejected.

This isn’t just about a single source it’s as its name suggests Open.

You push out false, mis-leading or biased data then you will be called out over it.

The daily Mail is a good example of poor quality journalism using poor sources of data. Like I said earlier it’s about data integrity and authenticity snd you only get that from reputable fact-checked sources,

There’s good and bad OSINT and personally I think it’d be naive to label all under the same banner.

As you say, its up to people what they consider a good source.

But to label them right wing bloggers is incorrect.

Of course its very dangerous to treat the word of any source as gospel, as I said the other day, people will take news from various sources and make their own mind up.

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

As you say, its up to people what they consider a good source.

But to label them right wing bloggers is incorrect.

Of course its very dangerous to treat the word of any source as gospel, as I said the other day, people will take news from various sources and make their own mind up.

*Doffs cap

 

[Aberblue]

As you say, its up to people what they consider a good source.

But to label them right wing bloggers is incorrect.

Of course its very dangerous to treat the word of any source as gospel, as I said the other day, people will take news from various sources and make their own mind up.

I suppose if one regards Stalin as a moderate, then pretty much most others are "right wing",

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

It might be a good measure that academic institutes are using open source info for research. Belligcat have been on the circuit as subject matter experts. They are deemed a left leaning source. They are fine.

 

[davek]

@tsubaki running rings round the Bellingcat dupes here.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

News - University of Nottingham to open new centre for research into media and political freedom - University of Nottingham

A new centre that will focus research on disinformation in the media and the freedom of reporting is set to be launched at the University of Nottingham later this month.

www.nottingham.ac.uk

 

[Wizard]

Struggling to find anything that says Bellingcat is right wing. Everything I’m seeing says that they are slightly left leaning if anything.

 

[Goat]

@tsubaki running rings round the Bellingcat dupes here.

Not really, he just said be careful what you believe. He's a very sensible poster that backs up his words with sensible posting.

He's nothing like YOU. He shares none of your views.

 

[Mutzo Nutzo]

Struggling to find anything that says Bellingcat is right wing. Everything I’m seeing says that they are slightly left leaning if anything.

It’s just more rubbish from Dave.

 

[tsubaki]

As you say, its up to people what they consider a good source.

But to label them right wing bloggers is incorrect.

Of course its very dangerous to treat the word of any source as gospel, as I said the other day, people will take news from various sources and make their own mind up.

I agree Bellingcat and the rest are probably not right wing bloggers (though the speed with which some of the pro-Ukraine English language accounts have embraced what the Israeli government want to do should make people suspicious, and of course there is how they talk about the far right on the Ukrainian side), but I do disagree with that last sentence.

There are very few people, fewer media outlets, and vanishingly small numbers of politicians who will took for sources from all sides and make their minds up - information isn't presented to us in that way any more, we either get what the algorithm thinks we will like or from the papers / TV channels that we agree with or support. There is no better example of this than the free-thinkers, who thanks to the internet admire the same people, believe the same things and have the same moral flexibility whenever circumstances demand they believe something else.

Plus it is really difficult to find independent and trustworthy news that covers all sides nowadays; everything is either propagandised or put out for financial reasons rather than public spirited journalism of the sort that used to be quite common.

 

[verreauxi]

Yeah thats not true David.


Higgins has received significant praise and support from human rights groups, journalists, and non-profit organisations. In 2013, Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch said "Brown Moses is among the best out there when it comes to weapons monitoring in Syria".[2] The New York Times war reporter C.J. Chivers said, in 2013, that fellow journalists owe a debt to Higgins' investigative reporting in Syria. "Many people, whether they admit or not, have been relying on that blog's daily labour to cull the uncountable videos that circulate from the conflict," he said.[2] Amnesty International said, in 2013, that the Brown Moses Blog was vital in proving the Syrian government was using ballistic missiles, information then used to send a research mission to Syria.[49]

Higgins has been a subject of interest for the British and U.S. media. In 2015, he was described as "one of the world's foremost citizen journalists" by News Limited reporter Victoria Craw.[50] He has been profiled in print by The Guardian,[2] The Independent,[12] The Huffington Post,[8] and The New Yorker.[3] Television features have been run by Channel 4 News[49] and CNN International.[9] He has also been covered by non-English sources.[51]

A 2015 Hanns Joachim Friedrichs Award (Sonderpreis) for excellence in journalism was awarded to Higgins and bellingcat.[52] In 2019, he was announced as one of Foreign Policy magazine's Global Thinkers.[53] In 2021, he was named one of the 28 most influential people in Europe, in the "Disrupters" category, by Politico Europe.


But its a tough call, whether to believe Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and somebody that was awarded an award for excellence in journalism or David, 71 from Wigan.

I guess the people will make their own mind up.

They are quite reliable and do great work on exposing racists in the US. They had one slip up but on the whole…

 

[davek]

Not really, he just said be careful what you believe. He's a very sensible poster that backs up his words with sensible posting.

He's nothing like YOU. He shares none of your views.

lol