At the heart of it are OSINT social media handles that break down the military jargon for you.The availability of open-source intelligence— from satellite imagery to data in websites to publicly available records to social media to network data—has theoretically made it possible for even ordinary folks to curate an accurate picture of the world even during wars.The operative word is “theoretically”.As the latest India-Pakistan military conflict showed, OSINT is also a minefield of misinformation and propaganda . Anyone with access to satellite images, for example, passes off as an OSINT expert on social media, and that is the message that often gets amplified.Therein lies the problem.Nico Dekens, aka Dutch Osint Guy, an open source intelligence consultant and trainer, reckons social media has made OSINT a game of who is first, rather than who is factually accurate.“During the Ukraine-Russia war, the Israel-Gaza fighting and, most recently, Operation Sindoor on May 7, people discovered they could watch cruisemissile plumes or aircraft tracks in something close to real time, simply by following a handful of accounts on X (Twitter) or Telegram ,” he says.That very democratisation of access also results in the democratisation of creation. A bit of critical thinking can make a big difference and goes a long way in this space.”She has a six-point checklist to confirm if stuff that is claimed to be OSINT-based is reliable or not:While all of this puts the onus on the person consuming news, perhaps it is also critical for others in the chain—from social media platforms to the OSINT community itself—to figure out ways to push back.Pratik Sinha, cofounder of fact-checking platform Alt News , laments a broader problem in the media culture that puts the onus on the person on the street to discern between right and wrong, especially given a lack of multiple perspectives in the mainstream media.
Author: Nirmal John
Published at: 2025-05-17 18:35:54
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