How Citizen Journalists Solved the Mystery of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17
On the podcast: The founder of the group Bellingcat on using open sources to investigate war crimes and abuses.
At a moment when social media is being used to spread disinformation and influence elections around the world, one online group is doing the opposite: sifting through open source material on the internet to get at the truth—in war zones and elsewhere. The group, Bellingcat, has conducted investigations focusing on a range of issues, from the Syrian civil war to Russia's poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal. It is now working on a probe of the war in Yemen.
At a moment when social media is being used to spread disinformation and influence elections around the world, one online group is doing the opposite: sifting through open source material on the internet to get at the truth—in war zones and elsewhere. The group, Bellingcat, has conducted investigations focusing on a range of issues, from the Syrian civil war to Russia’s poisoning of former spy Sergei Skripal. It is now working on a probe of the war in Yemen.
On First Person this week, Bellingcat’s founder, Eliot Higgins, describes how he and his colleagues conducted their very first investigation nearly five years ago, into the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight 17 over Ukraine.
More from Foreign Policy

At Long Last, the Foreign Service Gets the Netflix Treatment
Keri Russell gets Drexel furniture but no Senate confirmation hearing.

How Macron Is Blocking EU Strategy on Russia and China
As a strategic consensus emerges in Europe, France is in the way.

What the Bush-Obama China Memos Reveal
Newly declassified documents contain important lessons for U.S. China policy.

Russia’s Boom Business Goes Bust
Moscow’s arms exports have fallen to levels not seen since the Soviet Union’s collapse.