4 ms·

This. If your evidence for war crimes is Twitter, there's a problem. And the problem is not Twitter. Twitter and Facebook posts should not be evidence of anyt

This. If your evidence for war crimes is Twitter, there's a problem. And the problem is not Twitter. Twitter and Facebook posts should not be evidence of anything. That stuff is so easily faked that courts would be entirely right to laugh such "evidence" out of the courtroom. Evidence should be gathered by appropriate authorities and kept in accordance with international standards on evidence storage. Hint: That's not "look at this tweet I got!"

saagarjha 8y ago
I guess the reason people put these things on social media is to raise awareness of it. The problem is that they fail to also send a copy to the relevant authorities.
joeseeder 8y ago
I think you are completely missing the point why they are ending up on these platforms... Try to imagine a world where "appropriate authorities" do not exist, as a first step. Places where these materials get captured are not first world countries with respectable, recognised law enforcement. Most of the people these sharing atrocities are aware only about platforms we call social media. For them these are the only ways they know how to make it public, for the world to see and hope we will act.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >Try to imagine a world where "appropriate authorities" do not exist, as a first step. Places where these materials get captured are not first world countries with respectable, recognised law enforcement... I've lived in these nations, and if you can send via internet to Twitter, you can send to the UN. In fact, you can send to both at the same time.
  - joeseeder 8y ago
    And you know the UN address for submitting war crimes evidence by heart? adding to that, does UN have a convinietly preinstalled app on every phone just for that purpose? Just because it's reachable, doesn't mean that random witness will know how...
chmod775 8y ago
This makes no sense. Pretty much all evidence starts out in some nonprofessional hands. By this logic you could also say that you shouldn't record evidence of war crimes on your Android smartphone, because Android footage "shouldn't be evidence of anything" and "Evidence should be gathered by appropriate authorities and kept in accordance with international standards on evidence storage." Videos from Facebook or Twitter can and have often been used as evidence in court. > Twitter and Facebook posts should not be evidence of anything. That stuff is so easily faked that courts would be entirely right to laugh such "evidence" out of the courtroom. What courts usually do when such things may be disputed is they ask the platform to confirm that the content in question is real. Source: I have been asked to appear in front of a judge (usually in his office to sign a written statement) to confirm the accuracy/authenticity of data from one of my platforms in the past. I don't think there often is a dispute though, because both parties are aware this will happen and are also aware of the consequences of falsifying evidence. Obviously that screenshot/video together with electronic traces and your statement would then be stored wherever it is they store evidence, not just on FB/Twitter.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >Obviously that screenshot/video together with electronic traces and your statement would then be stored wherever it is they store evidence, not just on FB/Twitter... Money quote. Twitter is not the evidence store. Twitter is the place the evidence is gathered from. Along with numerous other sources. And no, they don't simply take your word that the footage on your platform was recorded at place X at time Y and is verified to document persons of interest A, B, and C. They take your word that a twitter post was made at time W containing video N. That's all. I think you may have misunderstood what you were signing if you thought that your signature validated and verified the content of a twitter post. (Or any internet post for that matter.) That's what the investigations are for, investigations that I can assure you entail far more than twitter posts when you're talking about war crimes. Crimes require evidence. Real evidence, not twitter posts.
  - crummy 8y ago
    It seems like you're implying that twitter posts cannot contain evidence of crimes?
rexpop 8y ago
How naive. We should be using any and all methods at our disposal to document first-hand experience of atrocity. The library of Congress does not have an app for uploading biographical accounts of genocide. We live under Capitalism; all niche value is exploited by cynical firms.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
fit2rule 8y ago
Do you know who Rodney King is? Which appropriate authorities investigated his beating?
- rexpop 8y ago
  Excellent example. When we're blowing the whistle on our own authorities, we turn to out community. Private firms have coopted our communities, but they are not beholden to our welfare.

saagarjha 8y ago

I guess the reason people put these things on social media is to raise awareness of it. The problem is that they fail to also send a copy to the relevant authorities.

joeseeder 8y ago

I think you are completely missing the point why they are ending up on these platforms... Try to imagine a world where "appropriate authorities" do not exist, as a first step. Places where these materials get captured are not first world countries with respectable, recognised law enforcement. Most of the people these sharing atrocities are aware only about platforms we call social media. For them these are the only ways they know how to make it public, for the world to see and hope we will act.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>Try to imagine a world where "appropriate authorities" do not exist, as a first step. Places where these materials get captured are not first world countries with respectable, recognised law enforcement... I've lived in these nations, and if you can send via internet to Twitter, you can send to the UN. In fact, you can send to both at the same time.
- joeseeder 8y ago
  And you know the UN address for submitting war crimes evidence by heart? adding to that, does UN have a convinietly preinstalled app on every phone just for that purpose? Just because it's reachable, doesn't mean that random witness will know how...

chmod775 8y ago

This makes no sense. Pretty much all evidence starts out in some nonprofessional hands. By this logic you could also say that you shouldn't record evidence of war crimes on your Android smartphone, because Android footage "shouldn't be evidence of anything" and "Evidence should be gathered by appropriate authorities and kept in accordance with international standards on evidence storage." Videos from Facebook or Twitter can and have often been used as evidence in court. > Twitter and Facebook posts should not be evidence of anything. That stuff is so easily faked that courts would be entirely right to laugh such "evidence" out of the courtroom. What courts usually do when such things may be disputed is they ask the platform to confirm that the content in question is real. Source: I have been asked to appear in front of a judge (usually in his office to sign a written statement) to confirm the accuracy/authenticity of data from one of my platforms in the past. I don't think there often is a dispute though, because both parties are aware this will happen and are also aware of the consequences of falsifying evidence. Obviously that screenshot/video together with electronic traces and your statement would then be stored wherever it is they store evidence, not just on FB/Twitter.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>Obviously that screenshot/video together with electronic traces and your statement would then be stored wherever it is they store evidence, not just on FB/Twitter... Money quote. Twitter is not the evidence store. Twitter is the place the evidence is gathered from. Along with numerous other sources. And no, they don't simply take your word that the footage on your platform was recorded at place X at time Y and is verified to document persons of interest A, B, and C. They take your word that a twitter post was made at time W containing video N. That's all. I think you may have misunderstood what you were signing if you thought that your signature validated and verified the content of a twitter post. (Or any internet post for that matter.) That's what the investigations are for, investigations that I can assure you entail far more than twitter posts when you're talking about war crimes. Crimes require evidence. Real evidence, not twitter posts.
- crummy 8y ago
  It seems like you're implying that twitter posts cannot contain evidence of crimes?

rexpop 8y ago

How naive. We should be using any and all methods at our disposal to document first-hand experience of atrocity. The library of Congress does not have an app for uploading biographical accounts of genocide. We live under Capitalism; all niche value is exploited by cynical firms.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

fit2rule 8y ago

Do you know who Rodney King is? Which appropriate authorities investigated his beating?

rexpop 8y ago
Excellent example. When we're blowing the whistle on our own authorities, we turn to out community. Private firms have coopted our communities, but they are not beholden to our welfare.