WITNESS is excited to announce our new guide, Community-based Approaches to Visual Verification. Read below to learn more about how and why we created this valuable resource.
“We had videos that showed the Nigerian army storm into the Lekki Toll gate and open fire on us while we were singing the national anthem and waving the Nigerian flag. I have videos of us trying to tie a tourniquet on my wounded friend’s leg who was shot that night while I sang to him so he doesn’t close his eyes. Yet, our truth was met with disbelief, a painful denial that forced us to question the evidence of our own eyes, leaving scars that extend far beyond the physical wounds.”
– A protester’s account from the #ENDSARS protest of 2020
On the 8th of October 2020, a groundswell of predominantly young people took to the streets in a resolute protest against the deeply entrenched issue of police brutality perpetrated by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigeria Police Force. Tasked initially with combatting violent crimes like robbery and kidnapping, SARS had become infamous for perpetrating a litany of offenses against Nigerians, ranging from torture to extortion and other inhumane and degrading treatment. Young people, in particular, bore the brunt of these abuses.
These protests and calls to #EndSARS rapidly spread across major cities in the country and culminated in a watershed moment on October 20, 2020. On that day, members of the Nigerian Army and Police Force descended upon the Lekki Toll Gate, a central gathering point for protesters in Lagos state, and used live ammunition against unarmed and unresisting demonstrators who were waving the Nigerian Flag and singing the National Anthem. Many courageous protesters turned to their mobile cameras to document the violence. Notably, DJ Switch, a Nigerian DJ and activist, leveraged Instagram Live to broadcast the scenes of injured protesters and the haunting presence of bullet casings strewn across the protest site.
In the face of overwhelming video evidence and reports of at least 11 protesters killed, 24 injured and 15 assaulted, the Nigerian Army took to Twitter to deny and dismiss these reports. Furthermore, leveraging state media, the government unleashed a targeted disinformation campaign against the #EndSARS movement to delegitimize the visual evidence documented, thereby placing an unjustly high burden of proof on protesters who risked their lives to document horrid scenes of violence at the toll gate.
Screenshot: X posts by Nigerian military showing denial of Lekki Toll Gate shooting
In addition, the lack of sufficient expertise among community practitioners to independently authenticate the visual evidence left the protesters vulnerable to various forms of online and offline harm. It took Amnesty International to come up with an investigative timeline and CNN to corroborate using documentation by protesters shared online, applying visual investigations techniques and tools to confirm what the protesters already knew to be true. It was only after this international pressure that the government took action, with states setting up judicial panels of inquiry.
The Lekki Toll Gate shooting garnered worldwide media attention, particularly due to the large-scale use of social media by the protesters to mobilize support. This elevated the profile of the protest and made it a priority for global institutions to intervene. This is not often the case for most domestic agitations as they face harsh resistance from the government and often violent crackdowns. Without the necessary support for local journalists, fact-checkers and community organisers to verify documentation, fortify the truth, and hold power accountable, perpetrators of violence bear no consequences. Communities should not have to wait on global north organisations for their human rights documentation to be verified and authenticated. This is critical, specifically in instances where established human rights organisations and mainstream media do not deem the issues “newsworthy.”
These circumstances are not specific to Nigeria. Indeed, with the rapid advancement of technology that aids visual manipulation, frontline documenters around the world confront the stark reality of their videos being discredited as false, even as they risk their lives in dangerous situations to document grave human rights violations. On the other hand, in some instances, community members, including journalists and human rights defenders may unintentionally share inaccurate or misleading information. This includes recirculating dated footage, incorrect geolocations, and miscontextualisation. While technological advancements provide accessible means to verify this footage and unveil the truth, these skills and tools too often remain elusive to practitioners in the global majority – leaving them exposed to disinformation and gaslighting.
The tools and skills needed to verify audio-visual human rights documentation are not widely accessible. This is especially true for many frontline defenders in the global majority who are capturing or analyzing footage of abuses. While there is an active community of global human rights digital investigators and institutions, many are based in the global North, a great distance from where the incidents are taking place. This approach overlooks the importance of community knowledge and localized expertise, resulting in mistakes, lack of cultural sensitivities and nuances when analyzing documentation.
To address this gap, WITNESS collaborated with grassroots activists, local experts and journalists to develop a new guide – The Community-based Visual Verification Guide. The guide supports individuals, journalists and community organizers to fortify the truth through a collaborative approach. It centers the knowledge and skills of local experts, community members, and social networks to verify information. The guide includes steps, processes, and tools that community members can use to verify the accuracy, reliability, and credibility of open source visual content, especially in situations where official sources of information may be unavailable or untrustworthy.
At WITNESS, we believe that the key to uncovering the truth lies not in the hands of a few experts but within the collective wisdom and resilience of communities. Verification is critical for the success and use of audio-visual content to build human rights cases – whether used as evidence in the courtroom, community memorialisation or truth-seeking processes, effective advocacy, or responsible journalism. It is those who hold the expertise and understanding of their context who should hold the power to defend the truth and pursue justice.
The post Why Do We Need Community-based Approaches to Visual Verification? appeared first on WITNESS Blog.