The need to preserve digital evidence from war and conflict zones

Journalists, fact-checkers, human rights organisations as well as others like security personnel have been working non-stop to get an idea of what is happening on the ground in Ukraine. The situation is similar in other war and conflict zones. Often, journalists and media organisations do not have personnel on location due to security concerns, or simply because access is difficult or impossible. Resources, too, play a role at times, as sending personnel to wars and conflict zones, ahile at the same time providing best possible protection, is costly. All these points are reasons why media organisations and respectively their journalists are increasingly relying on material posted in social networks. In order to analyze, verify, and archive such digital content, a precondition is that the material is actually available. This is where the respective platforms come in.

The dilemma of content removal and the necessity of preservation

Due to rules, regulations, and their own terms and conditions, most social media companies remove a lot of material from public view these days. This specifically concerns content that is considered graphic, disturbing, or distressing – but also material that is considered a breach of certain norms and conditions (these may vary from country to country or legislation to legislation). 

Analysis and subsequent removal of such material is often carried out (at least partly or assisted) by algorithms, due to the sheer volume of content in question. While this approach is understandable on the one hand (who wants to expose users to traumatizing images or get into legal trouble if it can be avoided?), it is highly problematic on the other hand. That is because the material in question is not brought to attention of the public (and especially investigators) or simply disappears for those who need to document and investigate it.

Preserving digital content from war and conflict zones is nevertheless vital. Not only for journalists and analysts trying to make sense of the current situation "on the ground", but also for prosecutors, for historians, for posterity. Ideally, it would be a coordinated, well-funded process, facilitated by the platforms, supported by technology, embraced by all stakeholders.

Recommendations – how to move forward

The war in Ukraine has once again highlighted the important role of digital content analysis and its preservation. It also makes evident that content removal poses a major problem. In this context, the following actions should be considered:

  • Social media platforms should be obliged to preserve and systematically annotate material surrounding war and conflict, especially if it is removed from public view (for whatever reason). AI-based tools (think: pattern matching, object recognition, scene detection) can significantly support the process.
  • All relevant content should be made available to researchers, historians, prosecutors and other stakeholders who conduct activities of public interest and relevance, following clearly defined access criteria.
  • Projects dealing with digital content analysis, verification and annotation of war/conflict material should be supported and funded adequately to advance the topic and related technologies.
  • Common archiving standards (metadata, annotation, verification, access, transferability) should be established and agreed upon; this includes making annotations machine-readable, working across technical platforms and making sure that as much content as possible is verified.

Selection of resources

If you are interested in learning more about the subject of war/conflict documentation, you may want to have a look at the work of the following (just a small selection):

The following articles, reports, and papers have more on the issue of disappearing sources and best practices in relation to archiving and preservation:

  • Hadi Al Khatib and Dia Kayyali: YouTube Is Erasing History. New York Times (2019)
  • Yvonne Ng: How to Preserve Open Source Information Effectively. In: Dubberley, Sam; Koenig, Alexa; Murray, Daragh (eds.) (2020): Digital Witness. Using Open Source Information for Human Rights Investigation, Documentation, and Accountability. Oxford University Press
  • Jeff Deutch and Niko Para: Targeted Mass Archiving of Open Source Information: A Case Study (also in: Digital Witness)
  • Human Rights Watch (2020): Video Unavailable. Social Media Platforms Remove Evidence of War Crimes.
  • Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley School of Law (2021): Digital Lockers -- Archiving Social Media Evidence of Atrocity Crimes.
  • Fred Abrahams (2022): When War Crimes Evidence Disappears. Human Rights Watch, 25 May 2022.

Author: Jochen Spangenberg (DW)

Disclaimer: a similar version of this article was first published on the DW Innovation blog.

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