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What if you witnessed a major event, took a photo, and uploaded it to social media. Could this become crucial evidence in a trial? With the connectivity provided by smartphones and social media, people who find themselves in conflict zones are capturing digital evidence of the incidents they witness. In some cases, journalists have used this citizen generated content to connect the dots and find new evidence of war crimes. It seems the power to achieve justice and ensure that war crimes do not go unpunished is in our hands, just a click away.

Immagina di assistere a un evento importante, scattare una foto e caricarla sui social media. Potrebbe diventare una prova cruciale in un processo? Con la connettività fornita da smartphone e social media, le persone che si trovano in zone di conflitto acquisiscono prove digitali degli incidenti a cui sono testimoni. In alcuni casi, i giornalisti hanno utilizzato questi contenuti generati dai cittadini per collegare i puntini e trovare nuove prove di crimini di guerra. Sembra proprio che il potere di ottenere giustizia e garantire che i crimini di guerra non restino impuniti sia nelle nostre mani, a portata di click.

Hannah Bagdasar is the lead investigator for Bellingcat’s Global Authentication Project and an investigator in its Justice & Accountability Unit. Before Bellingcat, Hannah worked as an analyst at the United Nations Independent Investigative Mechanism for Myanmar. Hannah got her start in open source investigations in 2016 at UC Berkeley’s Investigations Lab, since then she has spent the last six years working with online open source content in different capacities, including in international criminal investigations, combatting disinformation and misinformation within the context of elections, and researching the use of open source information as evidence in criminal trials. Hannah’s passion lies at the intersection of technology, law, and human rights. She holds an LL.M in International and Comparative Law from the University of Helsinki and a bachelor’s in Legal Studies from the UC Berkeley. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx