she granted to speak about her motivation for livestreaming the brutal attacks against unarmed #EndSARS protesters by Nigerian security forces on the night of October 20, 2020. Her statement is a reminder of the dangerous rewriting of history fueled by disinformation campaigns, a pattern that has become widespread across the globe. At the same time, Obianuju\u2019s statement also underscores the power of video documentation in countering such disinformation campaigns and upholding the truth.<\/span><\/p>\nMisinformation and disinformation are having a negative impact on many communities. Disinformation campaigns are being deliberately used to target activists and social justice movements, aiming to undermine their legitimacy and distort public perception. These disinformation efforts are designed to justify state sanctioned violations, suppress dissent, and manipulate the truth. The manipulation goes as far as attempting to thwart the collective history and memory of tragic events in order to evade any form of accountability. We have seen this tactic used on communities like the Rohingya in Myanmar who are standing up against the erasure of their culture and identity; as well as members of the #EndSARS movement in Nigeria who have been resisting every attempt by the government to deny the killing of unarmed protesters by state agents on October 20, 2020; just to name a few.<\/span><\/p>\nWith the rise of AI-enabled synthetic media, an additional burden is being placed on communities to ensure their media is verifiable and trustworthy. However, some of the skills and tools needed to effectively do this are predominantly domiciled in well-resourced global north institutions, who have priorities that are sometimes different from these communities that are encountering extreme human rights violations. It has therefore become imperative to foster collaboration that will build a more diverse community of practice and facilitate the exchange of knowledge so that communities can reclaim the narrative, fortify their truth and advance their own justice goals.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.witness.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Inner-image-2.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1\")
WITNESS launched the <\/span>Video for Justice<\/span><\/i> initiative in furtherance of these objectives. Our initiative is bolstering capabilities in three crucial areas to enable communities to move video evidence effectively through a \u201cjustice pipeline\u201d. These three key areas of archiving, analysis\/OSINT, and presentation, represent the stages within the pipeline of <\/span>documentation to justice<\/i><\/b> that require greater collaboration, democratized access to emerging tools and skills, and a transformation of the existing communities of practice.<\/span><\/p>\nA key step taken towards achieving these objectives was the <\/span>Global Convening<\/span><\/i> we held this year in Istanbul which brought together communities most impacted by human rights violations, as well as practitioners in the field of video and technology, so that they we can collectively proffer solutions to the challenges hindering the ability of communities to fortify their truth and pursue justice. Here are three topline findings from that convening:<\/span><\/p>\n