Posts tagged witness
In comparison with other areas on the globe, the West Bank and Gaza might seem to many to be “flooded” with media. This is true in a sense, but it also misses a point. Traditional media, including local outlets, tend to go to the most expected places, and film the familiar shots over and over again. Both Israelis and Palestinians are tired of hearing the same news, and media outlets are less inclined to send crews to film an “occupation.” This leaves a great deal of space for citizen journalists, and the West Bank contains many of them.
Our model of citizen journalism is based on working with the “regular” local population, rather than with activists, and many of the videos we publish are filmed from windows, balconies and roofs rather than by someone involved in the incidents. This, I think, gives the videos a special quality, and helps the Israeli audience see the reality from the eyes, or camera lenses, of ordinary Palestinians. It is also important in terms of access, and allows us to monitor and document incidents that occur daily in Palestinian streets and fields.
ObscuraCam!
It’s well documented that authorities successfully review photos and videos created by activists and journalists from protests in order to circle back and arrest those who were present.
Now, the Guardian Project and Witness.org have released and Android app to do something about it.
It’s called ObscuraCam and it automagically locks in on people’s faces, processes the information and then pixelates the image of those you want “obscured”.
As Witness, a human rights advocacy network focusing on video use, describes it, ObscuraCam “aims to protect the identity of those filming and those being filmed, protect relevant metadata, and integrate human rights standards of consent and intent into mobile video. Rather than rely on post-production editing, it will allow near real-time annotation of consent, and anonymization. It will integrate human rights considerations and practices into the work flow of filming with a mobile device.”
ObscuraCam is part of a larger “SecureSmartCam” project that helps activists protect themselves and those that they are taking video and photos of with a growing suite of Open Source tools allow the camera owner to, for example, instantly delete all content on the phone if arrested.
Or, the User can add more metadata — such as geolocation, timestamp and current cell ID — to images and videos. Important data for activist networks that need to know where people producing media actually are.
The Guardian Project ObscuraCam with screencast | ObscuraCame in the Android Market | Source code from GitHub
Brutally beaten down, desperate, without any chance of recourse to any countries’ law, by holding up a cell phone and filming the death of a small child they are screaming at a world they think isn’t listening.
Luke Allnutt, Radio Free Europe, The Death Of Oula Jablawi And The Democratization Of Bearing Witness.
Oula Jablawi was a two-year-old girl shot dead by Syrian forces, video of which was posted to YouTube and spread across social networks.
Allnutt writes that in the past, traditional media acted as gatekeepers of images such as this and often chose not to publish explicit and graphic material that might upset its audience.
That hierarchical model no longer holds as ordinary citizens with ordinary technology commit acts of journalism and documentation to share with one another and the world.
The Syrian Uprising 2011 Information Center put together this Google Map that shows videos from where activists posted videos of Monday’s protests.
The map and videos can be viewed via Al Jazeera.
It was very violent and brutal against peaceful people who just trying to cross the bridge… 17 people died right before my eyes. That has been motivating me to collect all the footage possible. We have three computers, Mac, Linux, PC, so we’ll be able to handle everything. Cameras, mobile phones, anything.
