Podcast: The creator of Bellingcat on using the internet to investigate global affairs

Eliot Higgins tells the story of how a group of amateur hobbyists ended up taking on Russian spies.

Published: April 29, 2021 at 7:12 pm

In this episode of theScience Focus Podcast, we speak to Eliot Higgins, the founder of Bellingcat. If you haven’t heard that name before, then you might be surprised to know that Bellingcat is behind some of the biggest news revelations of the decade.

They use social media and information freely available online to carry out what they call open source investigation.

Their work has uncovered the use of chemical weapons in Syria, identified suspects in the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury and identified the people responsible for downing flight MH17 over Ukraine.

Eliot speaks to editor Dan Bennett about his new book, We Are Bellingcat (£20, Bloomsbury), which tells the story of how a group of amateur hobbyists ended up taking on Russian spies.

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