Giancarlo Fiorella is the Director for Research and Training at Bellingcat. This article, published November 22, 2022, has even greater weight and significance now, for those who engage throughout each day with images as well as narrative that can cause great harm. To all the journalists who risk their lives, who keep us informed with the facts, some of whom are held as political hostages, we are grateful, and we will never forget.

“Bellingcat has been overwhelmed with messages from concerned people around the world who want to help us identify and analyse images of potential war crimes taking place in Ukraine. While this increased interest in open source research is encouraging, it comes with costs of which new researchers may not be aware. Those wishing to conduct open source research into this invasion will be exposed to images that are extremely graphic: they show the painful, disfiguring effects that war has on human bodies, cities and nature. Many of these images can be highly distressing, especially if viewed repeatedly and intensely. But their effect can also be cumulative: you may feel alright for a long time until one day, you don’t. What’s more, even non-graphic images can have a negative impact on you in ways that you may not expect, as I outlined on Twitter. All this means that we have to be all the more guarded when we conduct research online. Practicing good mental hygiene is a continuous process that requires active input at all times. The small steps you take today to minimise and mitigate your exposure to distressing content may in a few years’ time save you from burnout or worse.”