I dug into +12 free tools that can help with investigating YouTube, including:

📍Verifying/geolocating vids
📍Searching for videos, channels/creators
📍Investigating channels
📍Identifying related channels/videos
📍Analyzing trending content

https://indicator.media/p/free-tools-to-investigate-youtube-videos-channels-and-comments-osint

I spent the last 12 months collecting and testing a wide range of digital investigative/OSINT tools. You can learn about my favorites in my rundown of more than 45 new, updated, or new-to-me tools from 2025:

https://indicator.media/p/osint-2025-new-and-updated-digital-investigative-tools-of-the-year

VC-backed bot farms, oceans of AI slop, industrial level scams, abusive AI nudifier apps, Meta paying for hoaxes... 2025 saw digital deception legitimized, institutionalized & shoved down the public’s throat.

Our look at the year tech embraced fakeness:
https://indicator.media/p/2025-the-year-tech-embraced-fakeness

TikTok & Instagram have been deluged by thousands of videos from female students that praise Jenni, an AI study app. They say it's better than ChatGPT. They say it can improve your grades.

What don't they say? That they were paid to promote Jenni.

https://indicator.media/p/thousands-of-undisclosed-ads-tiktok-ai-study-apps-jenni-mindgrasp

Sensitive, confidential & interesting docs are sitting out in the open on the internet. Do you know how to find them? My new Indicator Guide dives into Google dorks and tools that can uncover publicly available docs on websites and in unsecured buckets:

https://indicator.media/p/guide-to-hunting-documents-files-in-open-buckets-servers-and-directories

For years, I’ve been obsessed with a number.

What’s the #? It’s the amount Meta earns per year from scam ads. Thanks to Jeff Horwitz at Reuters, we know it: $16 billion.

Our free Indicator Briefing looks at what needs to happen now that we know the #: https://indicator.media/p/briefing-meta-multi-billion-dollar-scam-ad-business

We published an investigation into YouTube vids that falsely claim to show police racially profiling and arresting a person that turns out to to be an FBI agent. They've earned hundreds of millions of views.

In response, YouTube terminated 13 channels: https://indicator.media/p/youtube-cop-comeuppance-videos-claim-to-expose-police-for-arresting-fbi-agents

A few OSINT tips in our new, free Briefing :

📍 How to set up a free, private AI system
📍 What the new Tools of War database can help you find
📍How to identify an X profile w/ the new "About this account" info panel

Subscribe to get it every Friday: https://indicator.media/p/fake-images-of-an-x-feature-that-hasnt-launched-llm-brain-rot

If you're in Toronto on Oct 29, I'm doing a free talk & discussion at the Hot Docs Ted Rogers Cinema, "The New Age of Digital Deception: What's Changed and How to Fight Back."

It's presented by the Canadian Journalism Foundation and MediaSmarts: https://www.eventbrite.ca/e/the-new-age-of-digital-deception-whats-changed-and-how-to-fight-back-tickets-1758668327309