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Web scraping can help investigators find and capture publicly available social media material, but a scrape is not proof that a post is authentic, that its claims are true, or that a war crime occurred. Treat collection as one part of a documented digital open-source investigation: define what you need, collect only what is justified, preserve material and its context, assess it independently, and protect the people involved.
What web scraping can—and cannot—establish
In this context, scraping means using software to retrieve information from web pages. It may help locate posts, capture page content, or organize material for later review. It does not, by itself, authenticate a post or media file, establish who created or uploaded it, prove when or where an event occurred, or establish criminal responsibility.
A post can be a lead, a source of potentially relevant material, or one item in a broader evidentiary record. Its accompanying text may make claims that the image or video itself does not show. Keep those layers separate: record what the media visibly depicts, what the post says, and what remains unverified.
The central professional reference for this work is the Berkeley Protocol on Digital Open Source Investigations, published in 2020 by the Human Rights Center at UC Berkeley and the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). It treats digital investigation as a process requiring planning, documentation, verification, security, and attention to human rights—not simply the acquisition of online content.
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Plan a proportionate collection
Before opening a scraper or saving a post, write down the investigative question and why online material may help answer it. The Berkeley Protocol frames collection around an articulable purpose, necessity, and proportionality. That means the collection method should fit the question, and the amount of information gathered should not exceed what is reasonably needed.
- Define the scope: specify the relevant incident, time period, geography, platforms or public sources, and types of material sought.
- Set exclusions: identify unrelated personal information or categories of content that should not be collected.
- Choose a method: decide whether manual, itemized capture is sufficient or whether a limited automated process is justified by volume or time sensitivity.
- Record decisions: document the reason for collection, the method, the person or system performing it, and any limitations encountered.
- Prepare security controls first: decide where material will be stored, who may access it, and how the team will protect its systems and personnel.
This plan is not bureaucracy for its own sake. Online material can be deleted, edited, moderated, or separated from useful context. A documented plan makes it possible for another reviewer to understand why a particular item was gathered and how it was handled.
Manual collection or automation?
Automation is neither inherently appropriate nor inherently improper. The Protocol favors itemized, manual collection where it is appropriate, while recognizing that automation may be suitable in some investigations. Compare the methods against the actual need rather than assuming that a larger dataset is better.
| Consideration | Itemized manual capture | Automated collection |
|---|---|---|
| Relevance | Lets an investigator select specific items against the collection plan. | Can find or retrieve many items, but may include material outside the question. |
| Volume and time | Can be slow when there are many relevant pages or a risk that they will disappear. | May reduce repetitive work, but requires review and documentation of the method and output. |
| Unnecessary personal data | Can still capture unrelated information, but selection can be more deliberate. | May collect personal information at scale that is not necessary for the purpose. |
| Security exposure | Requires safe handling of pages, media, and devices. | Adds risks from the collection system, stored data, and potentially malicious content. |
| Best fit | Small, defined sets of potentially relevant material or cases where selectivity matters. | A justified, bounded task where volume or urgency makes automation necessary and its risks can be controlled. |
Regardless of method, define what the tool will access and retain. Do not use automation to get around restricted access, impersonate someone, or collect everything merely because a page can be reached. A public page is not a blanket answer to questions of legality, ethics, privacy, or evidentiary value.
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Respect legal, platform, and ethical boundaries
There is no universal answer to “Is scraping allowed?” The answer depends on the applicable jurisdiction, platform, access controls, and investigation context. The Berkeley Protocol advises investigators to understand the legal frameworks that apply to their work and discusses privacy and terms-of-service issues. It cautions against using false pretenses to access restricted content or elicit information directly.
Do not treat public visibility as proof that any method of collection is lawful or appropriate. Before a real investigation, obtain advice suited to the jurisdiction and the intended use of the material. A general-purpose script cannot resolve those questions for every platform or country.
Ethical collection also requires data minimization and security by design. Consider the safety, privacy, and dignity of witnesses, survivors, people shown or named in material, investigators, and others who could be affected. Avoid unnecessary collection or circulation of identifying or graphic material. Security arrangements should be in place before online work begins, including safeguards against malicious content and exposure of investigators.
Capture material in a way that matches its value
A screenshot or PDF can be useful for ordinary work product, such as a reference copy or a record of what a page looked like during review. It may omit underlying media, page structure, metadata, or other associated information. It can also reflect changes introduced by the browser or capture tool. Do not assume that a visual capture alone is enough for material that may have probative value.
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For potentially probative online content, the 2022 guidance Documenting International Crimes and Human Rights Violations for Accountability Purposes from the International Criminal Court (ICC) Office of the Prosecutor and Eurojust recommends downloading or recording the online content with relevant associated information and assigning a hash. Preserve, as appropriate to the item and method:
- the content itself, such as the media file or a record of the page;
- the source URL and relevant associated information available at collection;
- the date and time of collection, including the time zone, and who or what performed it;
- the method, tools, settings, and steps taken, including any errors or transformations;
- a cryptographic hash of the captured file, recorded alongside the file and collection record.
A hash is a value calculated from a file. If the file later changes, recalculating the hash can help identify that change. A matching hash does not establish who created or uploaded the file, whether it is authentic, or whether its contents are true. It documents file integrity from the point at which the hashed copy was made; it does not supply provenance for events before collection.
Keep a clear record of what a tool did. If a capture service accepts a consent banner, removes a popup, or otherwise changes the page before taking a screenshot, the resulting image is a transformed view—not a complete record of the original page state. For high-stakes collection, preserve the underlying material and relevant associated information by an appropriate method, and record any supplementary screenshot as such.
A restrained do-it-yourself capture workflow
The following Python example retrieves one URL that is publicly accessible without bypassing access controls. It saves the response body, response headers, collection time, status code, and SHA-256 hash in a local JSON manifest. It is a basic collection aid, not a platform-specific scraper or a forensic acquisition tool. A successful request may return an error page, incomplete content, or HTML that does not include JavaScript-rendered posts or the original media. The hash records the saved response body as retrieved by this script; it does not authenticate the content.
Install the dependency with python -m pip install requests, then save this as capture.py and run python capture.py 'https://example.com/public-page', replacing the example with the relevant public URL. Use only where the collection is authorized and appropriate.
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import hashlib
import json
import sys
from datetime import datetime, timezone
from pathlib import Path
from urllib.parse import urlparse
import requests
if len(sys.argv) != 2:
raise SystemExit("Usage: python capture.py PUBLIC_URL")
url = sys.argv[1]
parsed = urlparse(url)
if parsed.scheme != "https" or not parsed.netloc:
raise SystemExit("Provide a complete HTTPS URL")
collected_at = datetime.now(timezone.utc).isoformat()
response = requests.get(url, timeout=(10, 45), allow_redirects=True)
body = response.content
Path("capture.bin").write_bytes(body)
manifest = {
"requested_url": url,
"final_url": response.url,
"collected_at_utc": collected_at,
"http_status": response.status_code,
"content_type": response.headers.get("Content-Type"),
"response_headers": dict(response.headers),
"saved_file": "capture.bin",
"sha256_of_saved_response_body": hashlib.sha256(body).hexdigest(),
}
Path("capture-manifest.json").write_text(
json.dumps(manifest, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False), encoding="utf-8"
)
print(json.dumps(manifest, indent=2, ensure_ascii=False))This intentionally does not log in, use cookies, rotate identities, defeat a CAPTCHA, or follow links to collect a wider set. Keep the saved file and manifest together, restrict access, and document any later handling. Treat redirects, non-success HTTP status codes, missing media, or a response that appears to be a block page as limitations to investigate—not as successful evidence capture.
Or skip the browser setup
For a supplementary visual reference of a publicly accessible page, ScreenshotNeo offers a one-request screenshot API. It is not a substitute for preserving probative content and associated information: its clean-shot behavior changes the page view, so do not use the cleaned image as the sole or unmodified evidentiary record. Use it only when that is appropriate to the collection plan.
cURL:
curl -G "https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot" -d access_key=YOUR_API_KEY --data-urlencode url=https://example.com/public-page -o shot.webpPython:
import requests
r = requests.get("https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot", params={"access_key": "YOUR_API_KEY", "url": "https://example.com/public-page"}, timeout=90)
open("shot.webp", "wb").write(r.content)Node.js:
const q = new URLSearchParams({ access_key: 'YOUR_API_KEY', url: 'https://example.com/public-page' });
const res = await fetch(`https://api.screenshotneo.com/v1/shot?${q}`);See the ScreenshotNeo API documentation for request and response details. ScreenshotNeo accepts cookie or consent banners and removes more than 60 known consent platforms, newsletter popups, and chat widgets before capture; each of those steps can be turned off. That can make a cleaner reference image, but also means the image may not show the page exactly as originally presented. Bot checks or CAPTCHAs, blank pages, timeouts, failed loads, and cache hits are not billed; response headers indicate the page verdict and billing status. Its MCP server provides take_screenshot, get_page_info, and capture_pdf tools for Claude, Cursor, and other MCP clients. The Free plan includes 1,000 screenshots per month with no card; paid plans start at $5 for 3,000 screenshots.
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Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Verify the material instead of trusting the capture
After preservation, assess the item and corroborate it. The 2024 guide Evaluating Digital Open Source Imagery: A Guide for Judges and Fact-finders identifies authenticity, metadata, source, location, and time as central assessment issues. Ask what each source can establish and what it cannot:
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- Source: Who published or supplied the item? Is the apparent account or source reliable, and what supports that assessment?
- Authenticity: Is the image, video, or other material original, edited, reposted, or otherwise altered? What evidence supports the conclusion?
- Time and location: What supports the claimed date, time, and place? Does the media itself establish them, or do they depend on a caption or another source?
- Context: What is visible in the media, what is asserted in text, and what is still inference? Could there be another explanation?
- Corroboration: Do independent sources or other material support key details? Are apparently separate accounts actually repeating the same source?
Record uncertainty and contrary indications rather than smoothing them away. A post can be useful as an investigative lead without proving the event it describes. Conclusions about a crime or individual responsibility require assessment beyond the existence of a captured post.
Store, review, and share with care
Store collected material and its records in a secure system that supports later review. Limit access to people who need it; keep a record of handling; and avoid unnecessary copying or public release. Review may reveal personal information, graphic material, or risks to people who were not the focus of the investigation.
Online material may disappear, and platform moderation, retention, and disclosure practices can affect what remains available. Lindsay Freeman’s 2022 report Digitally Disappeared discusses these preservation challenges. Prompt, documented preservation matters, but urgency does not remove the need to assess proportionality, safety, and legal obligations.
Troubleshooting common collection problems
- The page is blank or the request times out: record the failed attempt and time. Do not treat a blank response as evidence that no content existed. Consider whether a manual capture or another authorized method is appropriate.
- The result is a login wall, CAPTCHA, or access-denied page: stop rather than bypassing the restriction. Reassess whether the source is within the authorized scope and seek suitable legal or procedural guidance.
- The page loads but the post or media is missing: a basic HTTP fetch may not retrieve content rendered by browser scripts or delivered separately. Record that limitation; do not represent page HTML as a complete capture of the post or media.
- The post has changed or disappeared: preserve what is still available through an appropriate method, record when and how it was obtained, and note the observed change or unavailability. Do not infer why it disappeared without support.
- The saved file’s hash later differs: preserve both versions if available, record when the difference was found, and investigate handling history. A changed hash signals a file difference, not who caused it or whether the content is false.
- The capture looks cleaner than the live page: check whether the tool removed banners, overlays, or widgets. Treat the image as a transformed visual reference and use another suitable method for a complete record.
What the available guidance does not establish
There is no validated success rate here for scraping in war-crimes investigations, and no established statistic for the accuracy or admissibility of scraped material. UC Berkeley Law reported in 2020 that development of the Berkeley Protocol involved six workshops and consultations with more than 150 experts. That figure describes how the Protocol was developed; it says nothing about the effectiveness of scraping or investigative outcomes. Alexa Koenig, then Executive Director of UC Berkeley Law’s Human Rights Center, described the Protocol as “a living document that will help strengthen war crimes investigations using 21st century methods, with the goal of improving justice and accountability worldwide.” The practical takeaway is to use a documented, proportionate process and evaluate each item on its own merits.
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