BBC Explains How It Verifies Viral News Videos (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: When a news story breaks, social media is often flooded with videos claiming to show what's happened. Some are genuine, others are misleading or even false. Our first priority is to work out which is which. When we can, the BBC will go directly to the scene where it happened to check. But this isn't always possible. Some areas are too dangerous, too remote, or do not allow journalists independent access. So, footage posted online might be the first or only evidence we have of what's happened. But how do we verify a video? We need to answer three things. Where it was filmed, when it was filmed, and why it was posted. Let's start with where. We look for clues in the video. These could be road and shop signs. We also listen for voices. What language are they speaking? Is it in a local dialect? We also compare what we see in the video with satellite imagery. Are the buildings the right shape? Do the trees, roads and terrain match? Satellite images can also help us confirm changes to the landscape, such as damage by attacks or ongoing conflict. Next, we ask when it was filmed. If it's outdoors, we can use the weather, shadows, the position of the sun to work out what date and time the video was filmed. We use online tools like SunCalc to calculate where in the sky the sun should be at any given time. Or weather websites, which keep records of sun, rain, cloud cover and wind direction. We also use a technique called reverse image searching. We take multiple screenshots from a video and check whether those have appeared online before. If we find them months earlier in a totally different context, well, then we know it's not what it claims to be. Sometimes it can lead us to the earliest copy online and the person who posted it. We often contact them. They may well have filmed it and they will have vital context. So finally, if we can, we ask why. Why was this video uploaded? Who posted it? What have they said about it? And what might their motives be? If we can answer where, when and why, well, we can be confident something can be considered verified.