OSHIT: Seven Deadly Sins of Bad Open Source Research - bellingcat

"When news breaks and the internet is aflutter with activity and speculation, many turn to open source accounts and experts to make sense of events. This is truly a sign that open source research — using resources like satellite images to flight tracking websites and footage recorded on the ground — is seen as credible and is increasingly sought after. It’s free, publicly available and anybody can do it.

But such success comes with drawbacks. In monitoring events from Iran and Ukraine, this surge in credibility allows the term ‘OSINT’ to be easily abused, either knowingly or unknowingly, by users who don’t actually follow the best practice of open source research methods. In fact, since the start of the war in Gaza in October 2023, there has been a spike in verified ‘OSINT’ Twitter accounts which create additional noise and confusion with poor open source analysis. Conducting open source research properly isn’t about being ‘verified’ or having a huge following. It isn’t about expecting people to take your word for things. It’s about collaboration and sharing the skills necessary to independently verify what you see online. It’s about showing your working and the origin of your data so that anybody can replicate your methodology...."