Cover Image: We Are Bellingcat

We Are Bellingcat

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I had never heard of Bellingcat before stumbling upon this book...and this read opened my eyes to a world I didn't know, much less anticipated already existed out there. It does read like a spy novel, this feeling of investigations with resources that laypeople wouldn't even dream of accessing in the past, but now at the very tips of our fingers, if we know how to/what to look for. Really enjoyed the blow-by-blow accounts of some of the investigations the organization undertook, all while it mingled their ethos and the incredible way they proceeded to uncover so much. Hats off to them, and if you want to know more about their methods and procedures, then read this book. Highly engrossing, deeply provocative, utterly entertaining - it's sure to leave you seeing the world in a whole new way
*Review copy obtained via Netgalley & the publisher - all opinions stated are honestly my own*

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I was vaguely familiar with Bellingcat before reading this book, mostly through Robert Evans and his podcast Behind the Bastards, but I’d also read some of their research reports on geolocation for Interpol. I really enjoyed learning about how the organisation started; previously their open-source investigation techniques had seemed too complex and obscure for me to ever understand but I found this book really demystified them (and tempted me to get involved myself, since it’s apparently not as hard as it looks!). It was also fun to see Robert Evans mentioned by name, especially his work on right-wing online radicalisation, which I was already aware of and find fascinating.

Obviously, this is hardly an unbiased source on Bellingcat, who I know are somewhat politically contentious. But I’ve always admired their work and am not ashamed to admit I’m no fan of the Russian government, Assad regime, or other human-rights abusers, so I had a great time. In general, it made me feel really hopeful about the future too - one of Higgins’ central points is that the internet can be used as a tool for good, for combatting disinformation as well as spreading it.

Higgins is naturally the perfect person to write a book about the origins of Bellingcat, seeing as he founded it. But it’s also a fairly well-written book, aided by the fact that it comes with its own ready-made mystery/detective arcs in the form of Bellingcat’s various investigative projects (it particularly focuses on their investigations of various shady dealings from the Russian state, including the Malaysian Airlines passenger plane and the Salisbury Novichok poisonings). I found them really gripping - these were stories I’d heard about vaguely in the news at the time, but it was fascinating to see just how involved Bellingcat had been and to track each fresh revelation. I finished the book quickly and would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in Bellingcat’s work, or open source investigation generally.

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This is exactly the kind of thing I’m interested in and so I thoroughly enjoyed it although I wouldn’t say it’s necessarily brilliantly written.
It’s certainly educational and I think a must read at least in parts for anyone who wants to know how difficult it is to find out the truth these days.

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I had heard of Bellingcat before I picked up this book, but knew little about them. We are Bellingcat was a fascinating look into the future of journalism and intelligence, where anyone with internet access can break news and make important discoveries before the mainstream media.

The book turned a lot of what I took for granted about how journalism and intelligence work on its head. I'd recommend it to those interested in either field, in how news trickles into our social media feeds or the effects of the internet on global politics.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this title in exchange for an honest review.

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This was a total eyeopener for me. I wasn't sure what to expect when I started, but it was gripping reading. Fantastic insight.

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My thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing U.K. for an eARC via NetGalley of ‘We Are Bellingcat: An Intelligence Agency for the People’ by Eliot Higgins in exchange for an honest review. It was published in February 2021. My apologies for the late feedback.

I did an immersive read/listen with its unabridged audiobook edition, narrated by the author.

This work of nonfiction was a total revelation. Although a keen Twitter user, I was unaware of the rise of citizen journalism or the existence of Bellingcat before reading this book.

Eliot Higgins, the former blogger who founded Bellingcat, provides background on its formation and details of cases in which these enthusiastic citizen journalists managed to pull off a number of investigative coups using the techniques of open-source investigation. They have essentially redefined the way in which news, politics and the digital world is perceived. Heady stuff.

Among these cases was their discovery of the real identities of the Russian suspects in the 2018 Salisbury poisonings, the truth about the downing of Malaysia Flight 17 over the Ukraine, the sourcing of weapons in the Syrian Civil War, the identities of the Charlottesville Neo-Nazis, and scoops about journalistic phone hacking.

There was also details about the spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories. It’s not a surprise that Bellingcat has faced push back from certain quarters threatened by their activities. The book is rounded out with notes and an index.

I found ‘We Are Bellingcat’ fascinating and extremely dramatic. It has elements of true crime and espionage nonfiction as well as demonstrating what a strange new digital world we now find ourselves surrounded by and the need for caution in accepting things at face value.

Highly recommended.

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** ARC provided by Netgalley via the publisher in exchange for an honest review. ***

What an amazing book, I literally can't stop talking about it and recommending it to everyone!

If you watched Don't F**k With Cats on Netflix & were amazed with the dedication of these online sleuths then this is your book. Though honestly Bellingcat does reduce them to amateurs when comparing the techniques used and intricacies considered.

The way news is reported is changing. We no longer need to rely on journalists with a 'close source' as the whole world now has potential to be a course source. People documenting their lives on social media, we're all walking around with cameras these days and all of this can be verified using information available to all online. Amazing!

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This was great. It showed me properly, for the first time, the deep arrays of knowledge that exist on the internet and demonstrated that, contrary to a world full of absolute fake news, there are people using real knowledge in purposeful ways to bring truth to light. I still take some of this with a pinch of salt and I'm sure not everything Bellingcat does is going to be 100% accurate in the fullness of time, but it's somewhat reassuring to know that someone is trying to find out real answers.

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Remarkably interesting description of independent internet fact-finding
We are Bellingcat relates the history of how a group of dedicated amateurs grew into a well-respected organisation of enthusiasts who trawl the internet seeking facts that are everywhere but take time and effort to uncover.

Eliot Higgins was a one-man band who tried to establish the facts behind disasters and the lies of governments. He starts by trying to determine where photographs posted online was taken using shop signs and road names and pinpointing the location using satellite maps available to anyone.

As his reputation grows he is joined by others who have a similar enthusiasm for finding the truth and as their expertise develops, more avenues such as Twitter are used. Much of the book is devoted to taking real events and searching for the truth. What is found is amazing and it is thanks to dedicated volunteers that we now have the truth behind many cover-ups.

We Are Bellingcat is a book that can be read from cover to cover but it’s also one that can be dipped into from time to time. Every page has an interesting fact. Thoroughly recommended.

mr zorg

Elite Reviewing group received a copy of the book to review.

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The story of Bellingcat is one of the most fascinating in the new media canon.
Using a worldwide network of sources and investigators ready, able and willing to scour social media for hidden clues to some of the most newsworthy events of recent times Bellingcat managed to shed new light on these events using methods beyond traditional journalism.
Sticking to verifiable facts the insights gleaned from these methods exceeded the ability of cash-strapped traditional news media organisations to reliably report on incidents that remain figuratively and physically distant from many people's experience.
This could be a new model for investigative journalism and the book is a fascinating insight into a new paradigm for news.

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While I have been an avid reader of Bellingcat and their investigations, I had very little knowledge of how these digital detectives, this "people's intelligence service" first got started. But that is exactly what Eliot Higgins, founder of Bellingcat, describes in detail in this book.

Starting as a bored office worker with an interest in the Arab Spring and the Libyan Civil War, Higgins would spend his free time in the comment section underneath The Guardian liveblogs, adding little details he picked up from on-the-ground reporters. Via online message boards and blogs, he met a whole community of people who would fact-check claims made online or help spread important details of major news stories. Slowly but surely, this evolved into a core group of people, all with their own speciality and focus, who realised that there was a tsunami of fake news coming towards us and that someone had to stand up for truth and fact.

And so Bellingcat was born. The organisation, named after a fable in which mice want to tie a bell around a cat's neck to warn whenever the cat approached, is best known for their work in identifying the perpetrators of the assassination attempt against the Skripals in Britain and their investigation into the downing of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 by Russia in Eastern Ukraine. Those two cases, and more, are discussed in this book, with Higgins going through Bellingcat's work method in precise detail.

I didn't think anything in this book would shock me, but there were a few moments where I had to physically get up and walk around to contemplate what I had just read. From sketching out a street map based on a shaky video and identifying a specific neighbourhood in a Libyan city, to finding a social media profile for the wedding videographer used by the daughter of a Russian military officer and thus stumbling on a picture of an assassin, at times it was undeniable that fact is always more absurd than fiction. And fact, truth, evidence matters, today maybe more so than ever before.

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An essential read for those who uphold the values intrinsic to investigative journalism: Truth and Accuracy, Independence, Fairness and Impartiality, Humanity and Accountability.

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As a long time Bellingcat fan, I found this book a bit disappointing. I didn't learn anything new within the book.

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A very heavy book ( in terms of content ) and not something I would usually read but given the chance to read and review i thought I'd give it a go ,
I'm not into war or politics ...Well I certainly learned a lot and feel a lot better for it, the book was very factual and well written which kept me engrossed in the stories that were being told.
will definitely look for similar titles.

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I chose to read this book as I had a vague understanding of Bellingcat but wasn't really aware of how they actually work.

The book explains the organisation and how it started with Eliot Higgins, sat at his desk in his office job, moonlighting as an amateur detective, to recruit other volunteers to the cause through twitter, to how the organisation has developed.

We are given insight into the incredible the work Bellingcat do, with an evidence based approach and fact checking meticulously, they scour the internet for data to prove or disprove facts, such as in the cases of MH17 downing, the Novichok attack in Britain and the New Zealand Mosque attack, leading to big revelations and the finding of the truth, in a much better way than governments can, or are willing, to do.

I think it's amazing how they even search on Google Streetview to try and corroborate the exact locations of photos, matching up roads, trees and even signs. It's fantastic work and they are a very dedicated group of people.

It is a very long read and I was quite slow getting through it, but the information is very interesting in itself. I just wanted to mention that it is a very thorough and detailed book, so you can decide whether that is your thing or not.

Bellingcat are a great investigative source to follow as the information they publish will have been meticulously checked. They are an independent international group of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists using open source and social media investigation to probe events, and are a trustworthy source in these days of so much fake news.

Thank you to Netgalley and Bloomsbury publishing for a free copy in return for an honest review.

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This book should be on every teenage curriculum. Such important pieces of collaborative work by the network of online detectives using an eye-watering array of tools and apps to investigate, confirm or debunk alleged information or “facts”. It is astounding how much effort, commitment, blood, sweat and tears Bellingcat put in to getting to the truth of a wide-range of subjects, despite many agencies and governments trying to obfuscate the facts. An utterly commendable occupation and a brilliant book.

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If you’re a casual news consumer you’ll probably have come across Bellingcat as a result of their investigation into the 2018 poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in Salisbury. But the open source investigation team has its roots further back – in the Arab Spring and the dawning of citizen journalism via social media. It’s an absolutely fascinating read, but a warning: if you worked in a newsroom in the period 2011-2015 (roughly) approach this book with care. I wanted to read this book because I was interested in their verification techniques, mission statement and how they work – after all my day job is in a newsroom. But reading it brought back some memories that I’d rather not think about. It’s not that the book is overly graphic – or even excessively so.

But if you watched the sort of pictures they’re talking about first time around – most of which didn’t make the TV news because they were so graphic, you’ll find it coming back to you. I started at the BBC fulltime almost exactly ten years ago – and my first job was in picture intake. That first year – through the Arab Spring, Japanese Tsunami, Utoya Island, the assassination of Mummar Gaddafi – I saw so much really grim footage that I invented the Panda scale of how many times did I have to watch my video of baby pandas playing to cheer myself up. And I didn’t even get the worst of it. This brought back some of the images from that time that I thought I had forgotten.

But if you’re interested in open source investigation and in how the masses of UGC (user generated content) from the conflicts of the last decade are being preserved and the hopes for how it might be used in the future- this is the book for you.

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A highly informative look into the formation of Bellingcat and the methods that they use to carry-out investigations utilising open source information. This book was so interesting and made me want to try my hand at open source investigation!

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Thank you to NetGalley and publishers for this ARC

I found this book utterly fascinating, inspiring and slightly unnerving. A slight Anonymous vibe. Very well written will definitely recommend.

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This was an interesting insight into Bellingcat, the online investigative journalism site founded by the author Eliot Higgins. The detailed insight into the history and investigations they have uncovered, many of which have been headline press stories in recent years such as the 2014 disappearance of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 and the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury in 2018.

I’d recommend this title to anyone with an interest in investigative journalism and open-source intelligence.
Many thanks to Bloomsbury Publishing and NetGalley for the review copy.

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