Uploaded May 2021 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat.com, an open-source intelligence and investigative journalism website. Higgins’s site uses publicly accessible online data to investigate and fact-check human rights abuses, war zone atrocities and other criminal activities. Bellingcat’s reporting on the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine gained the site wide attention, including from the Kremlin, whose public statements on their role in the incident were being refuted by the site.
The online open-source intelligence and investigation community operates adjacent to state-run intelligence gathering and journalism. As Higgins explains, Bellingcat can be an interface between the person on the ground and justice and journalism institutions: “The person on the ground who’s filming these things, you know, they film it because they want there to be accountability. It’s not just [about] raising awareness of it.” Bellingcat is now doing mock trials to show how these open-sourced investigatory efforts could lead to justice for victims.
Additionally, Higgins sees the work of online investigations as a counter movement to the increasing polarization of media and the distrust in institutions that are leading people into online conspiracy communities and fringe thinking. “What I think we need to do is start teaching people actually to, you know, use things like … open-source investigation in their own lives,” says Higgins. He sees this as an opportunity to teach the younger generation how to engage positively online: “Rather than them going off [and] just being mad about something in the world and then finding some community of people that are going to kind of draw them into conspiracy theories, they actually are able to find communities that can actually help them positively contribute to these issues.”
Learn more at bigtechpodcast.com
Big Tech podcast playlist on YouTube: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRnfpAiVwGCewZSK4M1LTIcRyWPfo3JAS
Subscribe on:
Apple Podcasts podcasts.apple.com/podcast/big-tech/id1484910273
Spotify open.spotify.com/show/3i7GpvRRKksv76DzCcB34J
In this episode of Big Tech, Taylor Owen speaks with Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat.com, an open-source intelligence and investigative journalism website. Higgins’s site uses publicly accessible online data to investigate and fact-check human rights abuses, war zone atrocities and other criminal activities. Bellingcat’s reporting on the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over eastern Ukraine gained the site wide attention, including from the Kremlin, whose public statements on their role in the incident were being refuted by the site.
The online open-source intelligence and investigation community operates adjacent to state-run intelligence gathering and journalism. As Higgins explains, Bellingcat can be an interface between the person on the ground and justice and journalism institutions: “The person on the ground who’s filming these things, you know, they film it because they want there to be accountability. It’s not just [about] raising awareness of it.” Bellingcat is now doing mock trials to show how these open-sourced investigatory efforts could lead to justice for victims.
Additionally, Higgins sees the work of online investigations as a counter movement to the increasing polarization of media and the distrust in institutions that are leading people into online conspiracy communities and fringe thinking. “What I think we need to do is start teaching people actually to, you know, use things like … open-source investigation in their own lives,” says Higgins. He sees this as an opportunity to teach the younger generation how to engage positively online: “Rather than them going off [and] just being mad about something in the world and then finding some community of people that are going to kind of draw them into conspiracy theories, they actually are able to find communities that can actually help them positively contribute to these issues.”
Learn more at bigtechpodcast.com
Big Tech podcast playlist on YouTube: youtube.com/playlist?list=PLRnfpAiVwGCewZSK4M1LTIcRyWPfo3JAS
Subscribe on:
Apple Podcasts podcasts.apple.com/podcast/big-tech/id1484910273
Spotify open.spotify.com/show/3i7GpvRRKksv76DzCcB34J
