Hardtalk

Algorithms don’t drive the truthAmol Rajan speaks to Eliot Higgins, founder of the open-source investigative organisation Bellingcat, as the world grapples with the growing threat posed by misinformation and conspiracy theories being deliberately spread online. Founded in 2014, Bellingcat is an independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists from around the world.The organisation uses open-source research methods, which involve analysing publicly-available data that can be accessed and used without any special permissions or restrictions.It has investigated a variety of subjects of public interest, including the shooting down of flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine to police violence in Colombia and the illegal wildlife trade in the UAE. Higgins argues that the need for organisations like Bellingcat has never been more important, as conspiracy theories flood the internet and some people avoid mainstream news outlets altogether. He believes this is partly down to a lack