Aral Balkan
@aral@mastodon.ar.al  ·  activity timestamp 3 days ago

Announcing Gaza Verified

https://gaza-verified.org

I’ve been having video conversations over Signal with people from Gaza who have Mastodon accounts on the fediverse in an effort to vouch for their authenticity.

This week, I whipped up a site to formalise this and to enable them to add a verified link to their Mastodon bios. Hopefully this will cut down on the amount of time they need to spend proving that their accounts genuinely belong to a person suffering through genocide and famine in Gaza and help them with their fundraisers.

The first four accounts belong to:

• @Aseelsehwel
• @NouranKhaledGh
• @joynewacc
• @mohshbair

If you want to get on the site, please contact me. See the guide for more information: https://gaza-verified.org/guide

Please share and donate to their fundraisers if you can.

Thank you!

💕

CC @palestine

#Gaza#Palestine#FreePalestine #fediverse #mastodon #verification
Daniel
@helmet91@mastodon.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
@aral @palestine While I appreciate the initiative and the intent behind it, I must point out, that there's at least one account in the list that is proven to be using AI-generated footage for their verification video. This raises doubts about the methodologies used for proving authenticity before accepting anyone on this website.
I'd like to encourage everyone to prefer trusted organizations for donations, such as the Global Sumud Flotilla or UNRWA or others.
Daniel
@helmet91@mastodon.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
@aral I mean, they're not supposed to use anything but a camera for a video that is meant for proving their authenticity.

This was more than a year ago: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/02/deepfake-scammer-walks-off-with-25-million-in-first-of-its-kind-ai-heist/
AI is evolving rapidly, it's only becoming easier to pull off such scams. This is why I cannot recommend video calls as proof.

I do have ideas for validation that could be implemented before you accept Gazan profiles, but none of them would be 100% scam-proof either. Some strengthening wouldn't harm, nonetheless.
Aral Balkan
@aral@mastodon.ar.al replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
@globcoco @Aseelsehwel @NouranKhaledGh @joynewacc @mohshbair @palestine Sorry, that looks like one of the scam accounts. I believe it has already been removed.

Good way to check: has the person just joined (eg. Today) and do they already have lots of posts (eg. Over a hundred).

Variations of this account have been popping up on various servers yesterday/today and one even added a to link to gaza-verified.org to their account (of course it didn’t look verified).
dansup
@dansup@mastodon.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
@aral @Aseelsehwel @NouranKhaledGh @joynewacc @mohshbair @palestine This is such a powerful and practical use of the fediverse and your following.

Thank you for creating a clear, trusted way for us to directly support and amplify voices from Gaza.

A truly vital initiative. We're so lucky to have people like you on the #fediverse. Much love. ❤️
Aral Balkan
@aral@mastodon.ar.al replied  ·  activity timestamp 2 days ago
@Aseelsehwel @NouranKhaledGh @mohshbair @palestine A quick announcement that I’m very excited about: @joynewacc and I are going to run Gaza Verified together now and we’ll both be present during the video chats.

I’ll update the site as soon as I can to reflect this.

Thank you so much for volunteering to help in the middle of everything else, Joy. You’re amazing :)

💕

#GazaVerified#Gaza#Palestine#FreePalestine #fediverse #mastodon
crazyeddie
@crazyeddie@mastodon.social replied  ·  activity timestamp 3 days ago
@aral @Aseelsehwel @NouranKhaledGh @joynewacc @mohshbair @palestine You could design a certification program around this using verifiable credentials (https://www.w3.org/TR/vc-data-model-2.0/) that would allow you to give them something you've signed and contains stuff like maybe a link to an interview video or something that they can display as an emote or something--probably best if the video is embedded in the cert in case you get shut down and there's no place to put it. Or put it in a torrent in p2p land.
Jaime Herazo
@jherazob@mastodon.ie replied  ·  activity timestamp 3 days ago
@aral
I've received follow requests from accounts asking for donations and had put them on standby until i could verify them, some have been deleted in the meanwhile (scams i guess), but two remain, one you already mentioned and have approved and will donate as soon as possible (Nouran), but another one is not on the list, \ @lolorenad, who last posted on August 29 and seems real
katzenberger
@katzenberger@tldr.nettime.org replied  ·  activity timestamp 3 days ago
@aral

A much welcome initiative. Tying it to the Mastodon verification feature is an excellent move.

A little suggestion: the website just states "I verify that their accounts are genuine".

Could you make a more specific assertion of what that statement means, to you? At the moment, I could think of all, or some of the following:

  • Verified there is a person that looks like the avatar
  • Verified that the person lives in Gaza
  • Verified that the persons mentioned in their fundraiser stories exist
  • Verified that the facts in the fundraiser stories are correct. (This is just an example. I believe that verification may easily transgress into the territory of humiliation, when taken to far.)

So what does "Gaza Verified" specifically mean, from your perspective?