Verify a video clip
Establish whether a circulating clip is authentic, where and when it was filmed, and whether it has been edited or recycled.
- 01
Capture before you analyze
Download the clip and record its URL, uploader, timestamp, and any caption. The original can vanish mid-investigation.
Output: A preserved copy plus provenance notes.
- 02
Find the earliest instance
Extract keyframes and reverse-search them to locate the earliest upload. The first appearance usually carries the most accurate context.
Output: The earliest known date.
- 03
Break it into frames
Sample frames at scene changes and inspect them for continuity: replicated objects, warped edges, and mismatched lighting indicate editing.
Output: Suspicious frames flagged.
- 04
Geolocate and chronolocate
Run the geolocation playbook on the clearest frames, then use shadow and weather to pin the time of day and season.
Output: Location and time constraints.
- 05
Corroborate with independent sources
Find news, witnesses, or other footage of the same event and check that details agree. Conflict is a finding, not a failure.
Output: A confidence statement.
Field notes
- A clip can be real footage re-captioned with a false location or date — verify context, not just pixels.
- Re-encoded clips strip metadata; do not read an empty EXIF block as evidence of tampering.
- State your conclusion as high/medium/low confidence, with the reasoning attached.