Without a trace: Media trust ‘witness’ with no digital footprint in Liege attack

A number of prominent news organisations, including Reuters, CNN, NBC and Storyful, asked an uploader for permission to use a video after the shooting in Liege, Belgium, on May 29 — this despite the uploader having no digital footprint.

Gunfire could be heard in a video posted to Twitter by an anonymous account. The footage was immediately in demand by various news agencies and the account presented as a reliable source.

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RT Digital took note of a banner reading “Fire shots” that’s slightly elevated across the video. This type of graphic tells us the video originated on Snapchat, not Twitter.

https://twitter.com/Moon_DEX

This could mean the user filmed it in Snapchat, then uploaded it to Twitter from their camera roll.

Alternatively, they may have scraped the video, meaning they downloaded it from another source before re-uploading it as their own.

We looked for the username Moon_DEX on Snapchat. The search did not return results. The Twitter account gave no details regarding the name or location of the uploader, just a plug for a digital-trading platform.

Alarmingly, this was also the account’s first tweet after it was created the previous month.

Why the uploader chose the moment of the Liege attack, and in particular this content, to tweet is confusing and does not assist us in building a picture of who this uploader is and where they are located.

In this case we would need to talk directly to the uploader and ask them for additional information to prove they are genuine.

Despite these warning signs, the account was still flooded with requests from the media. Many organisations took the uploader’s word as evidence enough that it was indeed their video.

The video was subsequently used by news publications including TPI and TVI24.

Over an hour after the uploader posted the video, the account tweeted that they would be willing to provide “an uncompressed version of the video with NO caption” if “compensation” is provided.

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RT Digital contacted the uploader, asking to be followed back in order to speak via direct message. We hoped to obtain enough information to clarify the uploader’s identity and the video’s authenticity.

We discovered a Facebook profile for a ‘Qk Pham’ from Liege. Despite not publishing any posts or images for a significant period of time, we received a response from them in Messenger.

Qk Pham confirmed the video was their own. They also said they are based in Liege.

Qk Pham also confirmed our suspicion that the video had been originally posted to Snapchat. The profile was named the same as their Twitter display name ‘qkpham.’

The uploader of this piece of content is a genuine uploader who stated that he uses several Twitter accounts. His full name, and correct credit for the video, is ‘Quoc-Khanh PHAM’.

Nearly everyone online has some type of digital footprint; evidence of their existence in more than one place on the internet.

A digital footprint allows digital journalists to analyse an uploader’s activities on each platform and corroborate their authenticity.

Alarm bells ring when an uploader does not have a digital footprint. In a number of cases the only way to truly resolve a user’s authenticity is to talk to the person directly.