Talk:Bellingcat

Funding

This article needs a section on funding. I created one, citing tweets from Bellingcat's official Twitter account and from the verified account of Eliot Higgins, who created and runs Bellingcat. But User:Stickee reverted the edits and removed the funding section, writing "twitter is not a reliable source, especially for due weight or balancing aspects." While it is true Twitter is not usually a reliable source, these are tweets directly written by Bellingcat and Eliot Higgins, in which they acknowledged Bellingcat's funding sources, so in this case these tweets are indeed reliable sources. Unless there are any other objections, I will re-create the funding section. SpiritofIFStone (talk) 18:44, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

"This article needs a section on funding" - Maybe? I looked at what was written:

Bellingcat has gotten funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, which is in turn funded by the United States government

This is a bit misleading as it implies some connection between the US Federal Government and Bellingcat that may just simply be happen-chance, it is food for the conspiracy minded particularly those Russian-philes who keep saying Bellingcat is a CIA operation designed to make Russia look bad in the Malaysian airline accident, chemical attacks in Syria etc.. So we need to be extra careful here. Simply repeating data-points can be misleading. The other concern is no 3rd party sources have discussed funding, it's a WP:WEIGHT issue. Also arguably WP:PRIMARY since the topic is only sourced to Primary. Before restoring, please discuss until there is consensus per WP:BRD, as you started thanks. -- GreenC 19:17, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

Agree, reliable third-party sources have not commented or discussed this aspect, so it wouldn't meet WP:BALASP or WP:WEIGHT to include it. Stickee (talk) 23:06, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

A section on funding is not unreasonable and seems to be fairly common on Wikipedia pages about groups. I looked at pages of a few groups/organisations which I could quickly bring to mind.

“National endowment for democracy” page has a section called “source of funding”. “BBC” page has a revenue section “RT news” page has a budget section On the “Voice of America” page there is a statement that it “is a U.S. government-funded international radio broadcast source” The “ACLU” page has a funding section.

The only exception in the few organisations I looked at was the page for the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which didn’t mention funding for whatever reason.

If the statement that “Bellingcat has gotten funding from the National Endowment for Democracy, which is in turn funded by the United States government” is considered “a bit misleading” then perhaps just drop the second part of the statement and include “Bellingcat has gotten funding from the National Endowment for Democracy”. If I am reading the discussion correctly has been verified directly by Bellingcat. Burrobert 12:01, 24 May 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Burrobert (talk • contribs)

The previous comment was from me (forgot the tildes). What about “Bellingcat has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy”? Burrobert 17:05, 24 May 2018 (UTC) Burrobert 17:05, 24 May 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Burrobert (talk • contribs)

There still isn't any sources that show this should be given WP:WEIGHT. Stickee (talk) 23:41, 25 May 2018 (UTC)

There are some sources of information about Bellingcat’s funding available via online news services. It seems it started with a Kickstarter project (https://www.cjr.org/business_of_news/bellingcat_brown_moses.php, http://www.news.com.au/technology/online/security/bellingcat-citizen-journalist-eliot-higgins-is-holding-global-governments-to-account/news-story/196436ab0cba6b6eea0a76c5f16af0a1 etc). He has also received funding from Google Digital News Initiative, Adessium, and Open Society Foundation (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1278239551/bellingcat-the-home-of-online-investigations) and the Atlantic Council (https://www.rt.com/usa/423741-eliot-higgins-debate-postol/). Outside of the twitter feed from Higgin’s verified twitter account I haven’t yet been able to find anything about NED funding. The financial times did an article on Higgins in February 2015 which may contain some information but unfortunately it is paywalled. However the NED does have an online Awarded Grants Search tool so presumably the information can be verified there however the volume of grants is quite high and Higgins didn’t provide much information in his tweet to use in the search. What we need is an appropriate news agency to read his tweet and then print it word for word. Anyway, I think the verifiable information above should be enough to put together a funding section even though we aren’t in a position yet to list all sources of funding. Burrobert 16:09, 26 May 2018 (UTC) Burrobert 16:09, 26 May 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Burrobert (talk • contribs)

I do support a section about Founding. In this case it seems very important and relevent Geirsole (talk) 09:37, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

It 'seems' to who? See WP:WEIGHT -- GreenC 16:45, 9 November 2018 (UTC)

To me - because that indicates if I should take them seriously or not. When government funding comes through various organisations it looks like somebody wants to conceal a connection. Especially when they wear the label of NGO or want to appear like one, then deception is involved. E.g. The German Marshall Fund is usually described as an NGO, but they are government financed, so they are not an NGO. The International Crisis Group looks very official, but is a Soros organisation, i.e. a hobby horse of George Soros. There is also a Carnegie Endowment for peace, although we haven't seen a lot of peace in the last 30 years. Carnegie can fund what they like, successfully or not, but at least we know who is involved. 2001:8003:A070:7F00:15C:D3D0:4155:F19D (talk) 04:02, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

PS: I had a quick look at the bellingcat page at wikispooks. I cannot verify what they say, but there's certainly a fair bit of info. I am convinced bellingcat's info is useful, how unbiased or biased they are is for experts. 2001:8003:A070:7F00:15C:D3D0:4155:F19D (talk) 09:28, 19 July 2022 (UTC)

And to me. Never heard of the expressions "follow the money" and "don't bite the hand that feeds you"? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.188.128.126 (talk) 16:48, 14 September 2024 (UTC)

Shireen Abu Akleh

Bellingcat did a report on the killing of the Palestinian journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, in which they conclude that the evidence supports the IDF being responsible. So they do criticize US allies sometimes.

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/mena/2022/05/14/unravelling-the-killing-of-shireen-abu-akleh/

Unravelling the Killing of Shireen Abu Akleh

While the open source video evidence currently available does not detail the exact moment or shot that killed Abu Akleh, multiple witness testimonies place the blame on IDF soldiers. The available video evidence does not provide good grounds to doubt their accounts — indeed, it appears to support them.

--Nbauman (talk) 06:14, 18 May 2022 (UTC)

Criticism section?

So, no "Criticisms" section.
Interesting. Amazing actually.

Yeah I came here to ask about this. it seems quite strange to me that this very online intelligence agency equivalent of a private military contractor has seemingly never done anything wrong ever worth mentioning here.

98.36.201.241 (talk) 21:35, 13 April 2023 (UTC)

Why did they investigate the Texas shooting but not the Nashville shooting? 69.120.128.146 (talk) 18:10, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

See the reasoning at WP:CSECTION. Generally a dedicated criticism section isn't something we want. VQuakr (talk) 18:35, 9 May 2023 (UTC)

Two points

1) There should be a funding section. There is already information about Bellingcat's funding in the article, so this should be easy to do.

2) There are an awful lot of quotes from Higgins discussing his organization. In my experience, that's not normal. Perhaps this should be toned down a bit. As is, the article almost reads like an advertisement.

Thoughts? Philomathes2357 (talk) 06:23, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

1 I dont understand why a different section for funding would be better than keeping it in History because its just a few mentions but I dont think it would make it worse so I dont object. I made a subsection for it and for Reception in History and moved text there

2 I removed one quote that I dont think we need. Im not sure what else you mean Softlemonades (talk) 12:14, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Theres a Reception section I missed so Im going to merge that there Softlemonades (talk) 12:15, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

Nice. At a glance your edits look like good improvements to the article. I'll take a closer look later and come back here. Pecopteris (talk) 19:06, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

@Philomathes2357 because you contacted me, I looked at the article. I don't agree that it looks like an advertisement, but do agree that a funding section is a non-objectionable idea. BTW, good job keeping your talk page messages to a readable length. Pecopteris (talk) 19:07, 21 September 2023 (UTC)

No critiques worthy of inclusion?

Is it really the case that this organisation has attracted no substantial criticisms published in reliable sources?

I know relatively little about this organisation or its work; I’m not here to push a POV agenda or anything like that.

It just feels a bit strange see an organisation so “valuable to the United States Intelligence Community” — a hugely contentious topic — described in uniformly glowing terms.

Is this truly the consensus view among experts, commentators, etc? Foxmilder (talk) 15:09, 15 October 2025 (UTC)