Research Guide Social Media | Sunlight Research

4chan

Description:

WARNING: This source contains illegal, explicit and offensive content. 4chan is an English-language imageboard where people can post and discuss images. It has lax censorship and moderation policies, and people have used it to harass websites and internet users and post illegal and offensive content. 4chan automatically deletes threads after they reach a ‘bump limit,’ a certain number of posts in a single conversation, but some boards are scraped and preserved by archivists. Archives of the most controversial boards are available at 4plebs for /pol/ and The B Archive for /b/.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media, Associated People

https://4plebs.org/

8kun (8chan)

Description:

WARNING: This source contains illegal, explicit and offensive content. 8kun (which replaced the now-defunct website 8chan) is an imageboard, similar to 4chan, where users contribute to message boards on different topics. 8kun/8chan has historically hosted content that even 4chan has moderated against, including massive targeted harassment campaigns, archives of child and revenge pornography, gore, manifestos and videos connected to mass shootings or posted by the shooters themselves.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media, Associated People

https://8kun.top/

Archive.Is

Description:

Similar to the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine, Archive Today/Archive.is is a digital preservation tool for saving “snapshots” of websites. Unlike the Wayback Machine, Archive Today is privately funded and owned by an individual rather than a nonprofit. It serves as a backup for website snapshots on Wayback and other tools, which occasionally remove archives because of requests and court orders.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media

https://archive.is/

Bing Visual Search

Description:

Use Bing Visual Search to search the internet using images instead of words. Using this tool, you can find similar images, products, and pages that include an image.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.bing.com/images/

Crowdfunding Platforms

Description:

You can search these websites for crowdfunding campaigns on a variety of projects, charitable purposes or emergency community support. GiveSendGo, a Christian-focused crowdfunding site, allows crowdfunding campaigns connected to organizations and causes that other platforms may not allow due to content moderation, including campaigns by political ideologues, legal support funds for fringe organizations.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media, Associated People, Personal Finances

https://www.gofundme.com/

https://fundrazr.com/find

https://fundly.com/all-categories

https://gogetfunding.com/

https://www.givesendgo.com/

Discord

Description:

Discord is a messaging and server-based community platform. Originally geared toward gamers, many different groups use Discord to chat and coordinate, from the fandoms of particular influencers to political or advocacy organizations. You can browse and search public servers on the server discovery page. Discord community files and transcripts can be helpful for a number of investigations, e.g.: in 2023, as reported by the Washington Post and Bellingcat, classified documents related to U.S. Military operations and intelligence appeared on two fan-community discords for YouTube creators and a Minecraft community server before spreading across the social web. UnicornRiot collected Discord server transcripts to report on the planning of far-right rallies and neonazi groups. You can search Discord servers for mentions of individuals and their connections, or to look for an individual’s posts.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media, Associated People

https://discord.com/

https://discord.com/servers

Facebook

Description:

Identify an individual’s Facebook profiles and review the content available publicly. Facebook’s search function is no longer very helpful for anything beyond identifying profiles. If a person’s profile is private, there may still be publicly available content relevant to them on their relatives’ and friends’ profiles.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media, Associated People

https://www.facebook.com/

Ferretly

Description:

Ferretly is a paid research tool that aggregates social media activity from an individual’s accounts on different platforms.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.ferretly.com/

Findmypast

Description:

FindMyPast is a genealogy website that collects certain archival records. Using its advanced World search, researchers can collect information on an individual, their family or their connections by name, location and types of records. In addition to birth/death and family history records, FindMyPast has some historical professional and educational records archived.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://search.findmypast.com/search-world-records-in-education-and-work/and_schools-and-education

GETTR

Description:

GETTR is an alternative social media platform with less moderation. Site content focuses on political discussion and video livestreams. The app may be useful for identifying fringe connections to an individual and finding online discussion of them among groups that do not openly post on mainstream social media platforms.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media, Associated People

https://about.gettr.com/

Gab

Description:

Gab is an alternative social media platform with less moderation. Gab is publicly searchable and has a directory of joinable groups and business listings. The app may be useful for identifying fringe connections to an individual and finding online discussion of them among groups that do not openly post on mainstream social media.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media, Associated People

https://gab.com/

GoFraudMe

Description:

GoFraudMe is a website that can help identify fraudulent GoFundMe accounts. It also illustrates red flags and fake accounts. GoFraudMe is now defunct, but the website and connected social media cover some campaigns through 2018, so it is useful for identifying previous controversial GoFundMe campaigns connected to an individual.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media, Associated People

https://gofraudme.com/

Golf Handicap & Information Network (GHIN)

Description:

GHIN is a score and stat-tracking app used by millions of golfers. When logged in, you can search for golfers and see their stats and score history, including the clubs and courses where they’ve played. This is a paid resource.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.ghin.com/login

Google Advanced Search

Description:

Google Advanced Search uses Boolean operators, which allow you to search by including, excluding or combining exact words or phrases. Google Advanced Search also allows you to narrow results by language, file type, domain and other variables. Check out Sunlight’s Advanced Internet Search Tip Sheet to learn how to find exactly what you’re looking for on the internet. It includes a comprehensive list of basic and advanced search operators, search tips and strategies, and more.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://www.google.com/advanced_search

Google Dataset Search

Description:

Google Dataset Search is a search engine for datasets. You can use a simple keyword search to discover datasets hosted in thousands of repositories across the internet. For instance, a search for ‘politicians’ will return databases including Work With Data’s Politicians from the United States list and GESIS’ extracted Politician data from Wikipedia and DBPedia.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://datasetsearch.research.google.com/

https://blog.google/products/search/discovering-millions-datasets-web/

Google Fact Checking

Description:

Google Fact Check Explorer combines the work of fact checkers, journalists and researchers by aggregating fact checking and misinformation reporting from outlets and agencies around the world. You can search by topic or by people connected to a fact- checked issue. You can also upload photos in the “search fact checks” bar to see fact checks related to an image and when it first appeared online.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://toolbox.google.com/factcheck/explorer/search/list:recent;hl=en

Google Image Search

Description:

Google Image Search allows users to search for images by keyword or any of Google’s advanced search parameters. It also allows for reverse image searches using images and links.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://images.google.com/

Google Scholar

Description:

Google Scholar is an academic journal and patent search engine. It provides a comprehensive search of scholarly journals, databases, preprint servers and the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) archives.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Background and Family, Educational History, Professional History, Political History, Civil Litigation and Criminal Cases, Nonprofits, Campaign Finance, Personal Finances, Social Media, Associated People

https://scholar.google.com/

Instagram

Description:

Identify an individual’s Instagram profile and review the content available publicly.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media, Associated People

https://www.instagram.com/

Intel Techniques Online Tools

Description:

This site has tools for open-source research based on phone numbers, email addresses and other data. You can search it using any known usernames for a candidate, such as email addresses or handles for Twitter and Instagram. These may identify other websites where the candidate has used the same usernames. Michael Bazzell, an expert in open-source intelligence, cybersecurity and privacy, maintains Intel Techniques.

Resource Type:

Media and Other Open Sources

Area of Investigation:

Social Media

https://inteltechniques.com/tools/index.html