Benedict Garman's avatar

Benedict Garman

@benedictgarman.bsky.social

289 followers 255 following 66 posts

Investigative journalist, currently with BBC Verify.

Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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Dayum this is just great www.ft.com/content/6fb1...

(don't @me , I know Cory hates this platform too)

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Reposted by Benedict Garman

Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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You have to be so damn diligent checking ChatGPT, it really is as lazy as reported. I asked it to parse a list spanning dates over a series of months. It just did the latest month. I pointed out the failure and it retried, this time parsing a few from the beginning and a few from the end. Sly.

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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Worth noting the locations provided by every major mapping service (and Wikipedia) for the Holy Family Church in Gaza are wrong, and are actually 2.7kms away from its real location. The accurate coordinates are these: 31.50204752803098, 34.46402230337733

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Popehat's avatar Popehat @kenwhite.bsky.social
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There’s a vision of free speech where you say “you can’t let the government stop the Nazis from marching.” Then there’s the vision of free speech that says “if I’m not marching with the Nazis I’m letting down free speech.” Techbros seem prone to the latter.

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Shayan Sardarizadeh 's avatar Shayan Sardarizadeh @shayan86.bsky.social
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Two viral videos of detained and stripped Palestinians surrendering weapons to Israeli forces in Gaza have prompted speculation about the circumstances of the events and the filming.

@benedictgarman.bsky.social and @paulybrown.bsky.social have examined the footage in detail.

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Casey Newton's avatar Casey Newton @caseynewton.bsky.social
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He banned an account that tracked his plane, he banned journalists that wrote about it, he blocked references to Mastodon and Instagram, he dropped legal efforts to restore user speech in India. He cares about free speech only when it supports his right-wing agenda

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Omri Marian's avatar Omri Marian @omrimarian.bsky.social
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Haaretz's Amos Har'el reports that several IDF's elite 8200 Intelligence Unit WOs reported several times recently (and as late as August) that Hamas has completed training for massacres in the Gaza Envelope's Kibbutzim, explicitly refereeing the planned murder of civilians. They were ignored.

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Reposted by Benedict Garman

Shayan Sardarizadeh 's avatar Shayan Sardarizadeh @shayan86.bsky.social
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BBC Verify and BBC Arabic have examined social media videos showing how from 2020 onwards several armed Palestinian groups practised hostage-taking, raiding compounds and breaching Israel's defences in plain sight to prepare for the 7 October attack.

@richib.bsky.social @benedictgarman.bsky.social

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Mick Ryan's avatar Mick Ryan @warinthefuture.bsky.social
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It looks like Russia’s winter strike campaign against Ukraine is getting started. But this winter, Ukraine has a much enhanced capability to strike back.

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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Certainly seems to be the case considering lack of fresh videos and images around, for example, Al Shifa hospital, where there's a ton of text claims and counter claims and little visual evidence to analyse

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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Imagine being so short on talent you can overlook this sort of thing.

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Cat Neilan's avatar Cat Neilan @catneilan.bsky.social
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Lots of speculation among Tories that Suella Braverman could be sacked as early as today, with MPs from various wings of the party having made their thoughts known. Some believe Sunak is too weak to do it, at least one minister on resignation watch if he does.

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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...but verbatim from Planet: "There have been changes to the SkySat imagery available in the archive via Planet Explorer for a limited AOl over Israel and Gaza. To reduce the potential for misuse and abuse, we decided to apply additional review for SkySat imagery over the conflict region."

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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IDF video of Palestinians leaving north Gaza carrying white flags shared on their socials this morning checks out. POV location, approx: 31.474495, 34.438047 Source: x.com/IDF/status/1...

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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Sometimes there's a hold on sat imagery because other buyers pay for exclusivity, but straight up censorship is rare. In Ukraine you can task a sat wherever you like, and there's enough coverage anyway that you often don't need to. BUT there are time delay reporting restrictions on troop positions

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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Personally find vit B2 (high potency) a miracle for migraine prevention. Since taking it daily I get them way way less. Hard to quantify but noticeably reduced rate.

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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While war echoes around us, a reminder that the often irreparable damage caused will last long beyond the battles

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The Washington Post's avatar The Washington Post @washingtonpost.com
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Breaking news: Israel is expanding its ground operations in the Gaza Strip after hours of intense airstrikes, Daniel Hagari, Israel Defense Forces spokesman, told reporters Friday. The United Nations has warned that Gaza’s 2 million residents face a humanitarian catastrophe.

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David Axe's avatar David Axe @davidaxe.bsky.social
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The 2,000-person 110th neither is Ukraine’s most experienced brigade nor its best-equipped. But right now, it has arguably the hardest and most important job in Ukraine’s war effort: holding Avdiivka.

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Jim Robottom's avatar Jim Robottom @jimrobottom.bsky.social
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It’s a little known punk fact that the Clash also fought international law, but no one could work out who won due to a lack of reliable multilateral enforcement mechanisms, so everyone just argued about it based on their subjective normative analysis. It was an unincorporated b-side.

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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Don't go there unless I have to. Most stuff originates on a different platform anyway. X is just where the blueticks repost it for outrage boosts. It's got its uses and can't afford to be ignored entirely, but it's definitely not where I go for breaking developments anymore.

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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For those not wanting a censored Telegram (or whose career depends on hearing all voices), this can be circumvented on Android by downloading the app direct from Telegram instead of via the Play store and using the desktop app.

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Richard Irvine-Brown's avatar Richard Irvine-Brown @richib.bsky.social
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1/X

Going to try another one of those brief threads explaining how we at BBC Verify go about authenticating a video.

This is a very real example from the Israel-Gaza conflict, which I worked on with @benedictgarman.bsky.social.

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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This is really thorough work, nice one. Syncing the vids is 👌 - seems like main conclusion is that the available evidence isn't enough to draw a conclusion. Given days since incident, would guess it'll stay this way - continuing uncertainty

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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Hostinger pitching its services directly to automated content farms

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Benedict Garman's avatar Benedict Garman @benedictgarman.bsky.social
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Incredibly sad, everything about the last few days

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Reposted by Benedict Garman

Reposted by Benedict Garman

Christine's avatar Christine @klaxon.bsky.social
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I have invites. Please feel free to invite some cool friends.

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Meanwhile in Ukraine's avatar Meanwhile in Ukraine @meanwhileua.bsky.social
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"Today's Russian attack on a warehouse in Lviv destroyed 300 tons of humanitarian aid", - the UN humanitarian coordinator in Ukraine said

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Chrissy LeMaire's avatar Chrissy LeMaire @dbatools.dev
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I had a feeling this AI Music Generator's TOS was nasty so I uploaded it to ChatGPT for analysis. As a layperson, I was totally impressed by the output. My wife is a former contracts attorney and I usually ask for her opinion but this doc was 64 paragraphs and I didn't want to bother.

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