Bellingcat – Truth in a Post-Truth World (2018)

Directed by: Hans Pool | 88 minutes | documentary

What does the truth mean in the age of fake news and alternative facts? And what is the influence of social media on the way in which media and government gather information? The documentary ‘Bellingcat: Truth in a Post-Truth World’, about the investigative collective started in 2012 by the British Elliot Higgins, provides an astonishing insight into how social media has changed the world, and how ordinary people with a little online detective work can destroy the most powerful regimes. can unmask.

The story of Bellingcat is that of the ultimate underdog: Elliot Higgins, an unemployed family man in his thirties, started it from his living room by searching online for patterns in the wealth of information that is now publicly available: social media profiles, geotags on Twitter, satellite photos from Google Earth, and thousands of hours of videos on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other channels. In ‘Bellingcat’ we get to know Higgins, along with other members of the collective from the Netherlands, Germany, Syria, Finland and the US. Often they have never met each other in real life: all contact takes place via the internet.

Director Hans Pool provides a fascinating insight into Bellingcat’s working method and success. After the shooting down of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17, 2014, the Bellingcatters surfaced on the internet. That same year, they concluded that MH17 had been shot down by a Russian military Buk missile, believed to have been loaned to the pro-Russian separatists in the region. They did this through meticulous detective work based on photos and videos of a Buk social media installation of the same date, which was compared with satellite images on Google Earth and selfies of Russian soldiers at the border on Vkontakte (the ‘Russian Facebook’). It was only in 2018 that the international Joint Investigation Team (JIT) confirmed Bellingcat’s findings.

Throughout the documentary, we see Bellingcat take action during the beheading of American journalist James Foley by IS, attacks on innocent civilians in Syria and the poisoning of Russian ex-spy Sergei Skripal in England. They also regularly expose fake news, such as a tweet from a Russian ministry about so-called Syrian troop movements (in reality a screenshot of a video game). With her work, Bellingcat gets the attention of JIT and other agencies, but also of hostile governments: for example, we see the Russian state broadcaster Russia Today react scornfully to these ‘amateurs’, and the Syrian UN ambassador speaks out against Bellingcat, run by ‘ a man who does not speak a word of Arabic and based his knowledge of weapons on Schwarzenegger’. That it can also be dangerous is apparent from the panic among the Bellingcatters when one of them suddenly stops responding.

‘Bellingcat’ is the story of the underdog: ordinary people with an eye for detail, an internet connection and time to spare, who research online and embarrass the world’s greatest powers. Anyone who sees the documentary is almost inspired to open Twitter, Google Earth and YouTube and do some research. Because that is the special thing: in principle anyone can do this with a little digital knowledge.

The documentary does, however, ask few questions about the possible risks of this kind of ‘do-it-yourself’ research. What if they are wrong once? With so much ingenuity, isn’t it also possible to falsify things and spread fake news yourself? What if malicious parties get away with the Bellingcat method? Who is Bellingcat accountable to? Only the JIT investigator who is interviewed expresses himself critically when Bellingcat reports that he has identified a Russian commander on an audio recording that is part of the MH17 investigation. After all, this places a great responsibility on you. Also not mentioned is a German forensic expert’s criticism of Bellingcat’s 2015 claim that Russia manipulated MH17 satellite images with Adobe Photoshop. Although Pool has an eye for detail and balances nicely between a ‘look behind the scenes’ and a personal portrait of these passionate people, a more critical look would have been welcome. With that, ‘Bellingcat’ continues to gawk a bit too jubilantly, with little critical reflection.