Eliot Higgins

A new database on police use of force and misconduct in California makes public 1.5 million pages of once-secret police records For Immediate Release August 4, 2025 Contact: Journalism@berkeley.edu A new database on police use of force and misconduct in California makes public 1.5 million pages of once-secret police records   ...

New database just published by @latimes.com, @sfchronicle.com, @kqednews.kqed.org + CalMatters and built by Berkeley Journalism's IRP, @berkeleyengineer.bsky.social BIDS + @biglocalnews.bsky.social makes public 1.5 million pages of once-secret police records. journalism.berkeley.edu/police-recor...

Coming up on The Oz Katerji Show this week!

Tue - Conflict reporter @thomasvlinge.bsky.social on Myanmar & the Burmese civil war.

Wed - Founder of @bellingcat.com & OSINT pioneer @eliothiggins.bsky.social

Thur - The Economist's Israel correspondent Anshel Pfeffer on Netanyahu's end game.

Also I am a state actor apparently?

Update - first image is from yesterday when Booth appeared to be crashing out after our story. Second image is from today, when Booth nuked all but 32 followers including my poor innocent alt

Flash #AskBinface! Send me here any posers you have for Prime Binister’s Question Time, and I’ll answer the best ones in my new episode of Trash Talk which drops tomorrow, with special guest Jan Ravens!

The economy is on the precipice of recession. That’s the clear takeaway from last week’s economic data dump. Consumer spending has flatlined, construction and manufacturing are contracting, and employment is set to fall. And with inflation on the rise, it is tough for the Fed to come to the rescue. Unemployment remains low, but that’s only because labor force growth has gone sideways. The foreign-born workforce is shrinking, and labor force participation is declining. Telling is the economy-wide hiring freeze, particularly for recent graduates, and the decline in hours worked. It’s no mystery why the economy is struggling; blame increasing U.S. tariffs and highly restrictive immigration policy. The tariffs are cutting increasingly deeply into the profits of American companies and the purchasing power of American households. Fewer immigrant workers means a smaller economy. Any notion that the economic data misrepresents the reality of how the economy is performing is way off base. There are revisions to the data, even big revisions, but they universally say the economy is doing worse. That’s because it is. BTW, the DOGE cuts are a key factor in the revisions—not because BLS has cut staff, although that can’t help, but because the government often reports payrolls to BLS late. It didn’t matter when government employment was stable, but now that it’s declining, the cuts are picked up in the revisions.

Trump is panicking because the economic numbers are giving a recession vibe.
From the Chief Economist at Moody's.

YouTube video by RAINBOLT TWO i took a (definitely not cia) test

In this month’s newsletter, we’re sharing more valuable resources to help identify explosive ordnance, along with a look back at some of the most creative approaches to last month’s challenges. Including ‪@georainbolt.bsky.social‬ giving it a shot: www.youtube.com/watch?v=lJXP...

A Beginner’s Guide to Identifying Explosive Ordnance in Social Media Imagery - bellingcat Learn to identify some of the more common types of unexploded ordnance (UXO) in online images using open-source tools and resources.

This month the challenges were created by open source researchers Andro Mathewson and Kate Milliar. Andro has previously worked with Bellingcat on a guide that will be especially useful for tackling this month’s challenges . www.bellingcat.com/resources/ho...

We’re entering dangerous territory in the Bellingcat Open Source Challenge… This month we’re identifying explosive ordnance, another research skill that can be extremely valuable in digital investigations. Ready to get started? Dive in here: challenge.bellingcat.com

What's the title of our article?

Can you share the evidence it was an Israeli munition? As far as I'm aware theres no images of the debris, so I'd like to see what evidence you're using to make that conclusion.

So you agree with the statement we should have speculatrd about possible Israeli munitiond used. Should we have also speculated about the types of Hamas munitions that could have been responsible?

So we should have speculated about the possible munitions used?

Yeah, he's very selective about which sources he uses.

Fact Check: NO EVIDENCE Former Russian President Medvedev Warned President Trump Russia Has Video Of His 'Past Depravities' Did former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev warn President Donald Trump that he should not think that "the Mossad alone has a video archive of his past depravities"? No, that's not true: The quote wa...

Fake www.yahoo.com/news/article...

The core problem is this, he doesn’t practice principled anti-imperialism. He practices inversionism: if the U.S. supports something, he reflexively takes the opposite side, no matter how brutal that side is, no matter the evidence.

Thanks for proving my point.

Tell me how anything that's in our report is inconsistent with any of the othet reports you've cited. Give me one specific example to start

Ultimately, though, it appears Jutel is doing exactly what I described in this thread
bsky.app/profile/elio...

Disinfo research isn’t above critique, it needs more of it. But serious critique should focus on evidence, methods, and outcomes, not just ideological suspicion. Otherwise, we risk replacing one orthodoxy with another.

Jutel ends by saying Disinfo is just “a technocratic way to label a disinfo enemy.” But throughout the thread, he labels others as NATO-aligned, technocrats, and tools of empire. It's a mirror of what he claims to oppose.

He praises Forensic Architecture for getting OSINT “right.” They do great work, but they use many of the same methods Bellingcat does, and it was originally inspired by Bellingcat. If the critique is about methodology, this undercuts it. If it's about politics, it should be made explicit.

Jutel critiques Bellingcat’s Gaza coverage, saying it “complexified” the Al-Ahli blast. But he doesn’t identify factual flaws. If he believes our conclusions were wrong, he should point to the evidence, not just object to the framing.

He argues the disinfo field can’t restore public trust or democracy. Fair, it’s not meant to do that alone. But disinfo research can clarify what’s true, which is a prerequisite for any democratic restoration.

Jutel’s broader point is that a class of technocrats tied to NatSec/Silicon Valley frames all information around hybrid war. That may apply to some institutional actors, but projecting it onto all OSINT or disinfo work is reductive.

He claims Disinfo research avoids ideology and ethics, reducing analysis to “if Russia believes X, I believe Y.” But this conflates caution about alignment with authoritarian states with lack of principles. The field isn’t apolitical, it's just method-first.

Jutel frames OSINT as “crisis-comms tradecraft” elevated into academia. But much of the work (including Bellingcat's) is based on open methods, transparent sourcing, and public accountability, the opposite of closed-door “tradecraft.”

He accuses me of dismissing his critiques solely because of sources like Alan Macleod and Grayzone. But if those are central to his argument, it’s fair to question their credibility , especially given their track record on Syria, Russia, etc.

Jutel links Disinfo frameworks to “hubris” and claims they shield platforms from structural critique. But this ignores that many in the field do analyse structural factors, platform economics, information infrastructure, and regulatory failure among them.

He suggests OSINT and Disinfo frameworks serve as the “new Doxa”, uncritically accepted truths, within academia. But these fields are far from uniform. Researchers frequently debate methods, ethics, and institutional power. There's no monolithic “disinfo orthodoxy.”