This is how ‘The O Team’ was born. O for OSINT: a volunteer anti-hoax brigade to fight together against disinformation about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. This team, made up of Malditas and Malditos who had shared with us their superpowers related to OSINT, has been helping us for several weeks to give context to videos and images related to the Russian attack on Ukraine. These are some of the articles in which they have already helped us.
The geolocation of the photo of military armored vehicles next to a building that was claimed to be a hospital
A few days ago, after the explosion at the children's hospital in Mariupol (Ukraine), a photograph of military armored vehicles next to a building went viral with a message claiming that Ukrainian troops were using the bombed hospital as a shield. In other versions it was said to be a "kindergarten.”
In these cases, it is important to geolocate the image to know what the building actually corresponds to. The difficulty in this case was that there is no Google Street View in Mariupol. We proposed that the Malditos who are members of the O Team use Yandex Maps, but we found that in the city there are many buildings similar to the one in the image, and that buildings with that shape in Mariupol are kindergartens and are called "Detsky sad № XYZ". Looking at some of them, one of the Malditos on the team geolocated the image: it was from a building about 10 kilometers away in a straight line from the hospital.
Looking for signs that a video is or is not manipulated
Different disinformation claims have been circulating for days saying that Zelenski has fled Ukraine, without providing evidence. One of these hoaxes claims that a video recorded on March 11 was filmed using chroma, “a green screen”. We proposed that the Malditos of the O Team look for signs of chroma or reasons why the video might not be manipulated. Through observation, the Malditos detected several signs that the video was not manipulated:
- Zelenski’s hair moves and vapor can be seen coming out of his mouth at several moments.
- The camera moves at the beginning and both Zelenski and the background vibrate.
- At one moment near the beginning “something can be seen passing in front of the camera and it passes from the background area to the subject area.”
- During the video, the sun moves and comes to illuminate Zelenski’s head or the lower right corner and the entire video changes brightness accordingly.
- The integration of the subject and the background is perfect for it to be chroma.
- The grain of the image appears equivalent in both areas (subject and background).
In addition, when changing the color temperature in the video, it varies for both the background and Zelenski. You can find the full verification available in Maldito Bulo.
Geolocating a meeting using the archive (and looking at the carpet)
In line with the disinformation claiming that Zelenski has fled Kyiv, another hoax has circulated saying that the meeting between Zelenski and three European prime ministers on March 15 took place in Poland. To debunk this hoax we took as a reference the photographs of the meeting with the prime ministers distributed by the Presidency of Ukraine. In one of them the room where the meeting took place is shown. The Malditos of the O Team located archive images of that same room in meetings held in 2021: it matches the room in the presidential office of the president of Ukraine, located in Kyiv, where Zelenski usually attended conferences and meetings before the Russian invasion.
In the images distributed from this meeting a press conference in another area of the building is also shown. The Malditos of the O Team noticed the carpet: on Google Maps there is a 2017 image of the presidential office of Ukraine where it can be seen that the carpet is the same.
How to be part of ‘The O Team’
Maldita.es is a non-profit foundation and ‘The O Team’ is just one of the ways you can help us in our mission against disinformation. If you have the knowledge and want to be part of this team to help us stop hoaxes, write to us at [email protected].
You can also help us by adding your superpowers to the fight against hoaxes and collaborating financially by becoming an ambassador of Maldita.es to sustain our mission. We need you by our side to combat disinformation!