Information Forensics: Five Case Studies on How to Verify Crowdsourced Information from Social Media

My 20+ page study on verifying crowdsourced information is now publicly available here as a PDF and here as an open Google Doc for comments. I very much welcome constructive feedback from iRevolution readers so I can improve the piece before it gets published in an edited book next year.

Abstract

False information can cost lives. But no information can also cost lives, especially in a crisis zone. Indeed, information is perishable so the potential value of information must be weighed against the urgency of the situation. Correct information that arrives too late is useless. Crowdsourced information can provide rapid situational awareness, especially when added to a live crisis map. But information in the social media space may not be reliable or immediately verifiable. This may explain why humanitarian (and news) organizations are often reluctant to leverage crowdsourced crisis maps. Many believe that verifying crowdsourced information is either too challenging or impossible. The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that concrete strategies do exist for the verification of geo-referenced crowdsourced social media information. The study first provides a brief introduction to crisis mapping and argues that crowdsourcing is simply non-probability sampling. Next, five case studies comprising various efforts to verify social media are analyzed to demonstrate how different verification strategies work. The five case studies are: Andy Carvin and Twitter; Kyrgyzstan and Skype; BBC’s User-Generated Content Hub; the Standby Volunteer Task Force (SBTF); and U-Shahid in Egypt. The final section concludes the study with specific recommendations.

Update: See also this link and my other posts on Information Forensics.

24 responses to “Information Forensics: Five Case Studies on How to Verify Crowdsourced Information from Social Media

  1. Pingback: How to Verify Social Media Content: Some Tips and Tricks on Information Forensics | iRevolution

  2. This is a terrific idea – crowdsourcing a study on crowdsourcing!

  3. Great stuff Patrick, thanks for this.

  4. Hello may be of interest for the topic of this article to remember this webinar by George Chamales; it is iteresting how he “sees” the issue. http://cyphersnap.blogspot.com/2012/01/crisismappers-webinar.html

  5. Pingback: Stranger than Fiction: A Few Words About An Ethical Compass for Crisis Mapping « GEODATA POLICY

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  12. Pingback: Crowdsourcing for Human Rights Monitoring: Challenges and Opportunities for Information Collection & Verification | iRevolution

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