War Crimes Prosecutors Rely on Social Media Posts. Will TikTok Share Ukraine Footage?

"TikTok is resisting calls to preserve and hand over access to its content for war crime investigations," reports the Financial Times, "as lawyers and activists warn that the Chinese-owned app is a major data challenge in prosecuting atrocities in Russia's invasion of Ukraine." The video app's popularity with young Ukrainians and Russians posting footage of the war has made it a trove of digital intelligence that investigators are attempting to mine and archive as evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity, and illegal acts of violence in Ukraine....

"I have concerns about the security of data there, and it is not fully clear where the interest and influence in the company is coming from," said Dia Kayyali, associate director for advocacy at Mnemonic, a nonprofit that archives digital documentation of human rights violations. "It is especially concerning that China could directly have access to that data...." Since early 2022, TikTok has met with human rights lawyers, activists, and others involved in Ukraine war crime investigations. However, it has yet to introduce any changes to its process or the product itself.

Criminal prosecutors are increasingly relying on social media posts from TikTok and others as a way to "bring the crime scene to the courtroom," said Karim Khan, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. "Any effective investigation anywhere in the world now really requires a very effective harnessing of social media," said Khan. "People... recording killings or attacks or the consequences of attacks in real time, it can have absolutely fantastic probative value...."

TikTok said it regularly meets with organizations, government bodies, and third-party experts to gather feedback and is committed to cooperating with law enforcement while respecting the privacy of its users.

Re:Will they share the footage?

[Ecuador]

Only if it shows Russian war crimes...

Eh, don't you mean the opposite? China is one of the few countries that are still close to Russia and Tik Tok is based in China. There is the fear that Tik Tok follows the Chinese government's wishes so they would not want to help to expose Russian war crimes...

Chain of custody and rules of evidence?

[RightwingNutjob]

In most American courts, you can certainly use stuff people post on the internet against them. But with things like video evidence you've at least got to make an effort at proving that the thing came from where you say it does and show what you say it does.

Some university professors (ie Hany Farid) have a good side hustle going in testifying as expert witnesses in court to attest that a video shown as evidence isn't faked and shows something physically plausible.

Dude gave a talk at my university almost 20 years ago talking about how he'd go as far as recreate scenes with the same kind of camera and optics to see if the lighting conditions at the time in the video under examination could show the same thing under test condtions.

Pretty strong threshold for putting someone in jail. Tiktoks some dude found online? Maybe, but I have a suspicion that the rules of evidence in wartime tend to be... less robust than the rules of evidence in American courts in peacetime.

Re:

[fermion]

It is amazing that TIk Tok care more about privacy and the rule of law than Amazon

Some mysteries are too hard to figure out

[systemd-anonymousd]

* Russia is being pushed to be closer to China

* China controls TikTok

* TikTok is resisting calls to release war crime footage.

God if only someone could figure this out. I'm glad we don't have to worry about the fact that millions of kids consume millions hours of TikTok content a day and much of that content is promoted material. If that were the case it might possibly be concerning at some future time.

Re:

[Anonymous Coward]

When fascism came to America, it wasn't wearing jackboots, it was wearing body armour and a MAGA hat.

FTFY.

Re:

[LeeLynx]

Gee, I wonder who was modding *this* down.

And WHO owns Tik-Tok again

[p51d007]

Well OF COURSE thee CCP wouldn't hand that over. Russia & China have a common goal, global domination. But China wants it all, so they will let Russia continue, until it suits them, and THEN they will turn over any incriminating video, not that the U.N. or anyone else will do anything about it.

Re:

[LeeLynx]

False equivalency and misdirection are amazingly useful things, aren't they?

1. Irrespective of who says it, that's not what "Full Spectrum Dominance" means. The US military defines the concept as: [archive.org]

...the ability of US forces, operating unilaterally or in combination with multinational and interagency partners, to defeat any adversary and control any situation across the full range of military operations.

The whole concept contemplates doing so through the building of alliances. That's not how "dominating the planet" works - or to the extent it does, it was pretty weird to tell everyone that was why we are doing it. Or maybe that's what we want you to think..

2. Furthermore, it addresses the ability to carry

Re:

[LeeLynx]

That would be an excellent point if I didn't write the entire remainder of that post. Or if words in a sentence didn't modify the meaning of other words in that same sentence.

Re:

[dcw3]

It's the US that's obsessed with dominating the entire planet, not Russia or China. It even has a term for it: Full Spectrum Dominance. You have a thousand military bases around the world and spend more than the rest of the world combined [motherjones.com] on arms, so take your high horse to the nearest mirror.

If that were really the case, why hasn't the US just taken over Germany and Japan, and other places after wars? Try thinking before speaking out of your ass.

Re:

[LeeLynx]

The title of your original reply was apparently just hilarious foreshadowing.