Not just left and right, but establishment, too. Eliot Higgins was an SA mod, who got into analysing images out of the Arab spring uprisings after learning that

Not just left and right, but establishment, too. Eliot Higgins was an SA mod, who got into analysing images out of the Arab spring uprisings after learning that some of his fellow goons had gone there to volunteer for one side or another. He got picked up by the US/UK FP/MIL/INT establishment after his excellent documentation of modified volcano rockets in the Syrian civil war. I think that wasn't just for his journalism though, but from worry that he might become another headache like Wikileaks, should be start focusing on other conflicts. They groomed him to be a bulwark against less friendly OSINT journalism.