Online evidence for journalists and OSINT: Evidence that outlasts the takedown.
The posts and videos that document wrongdoing are often deleted within days, and the people exposed will call whatever survives a fake. Shorenet gives you a record an editor, a lawyer or a tribunal can check for themselves: what the site delivered, witnessed by a relay you don’t control, and sealed so any later change shows.
Exhibit 16 · sealed
Archived social media post
@witness.example
Footage from the scene, ten minutes ago.
- Captured 30 August 2026, 06:21 UTC
- SHA-256
51220e26…b284c2e3 - Timestamped by DigiCert (RFC 3161)
- Witnessed by the Shorenet relay
Verified · independently witnessed
Online evidence disappears, and real evidence gets called fake
Nearly 1 in 5
Posts on X (then Twitter) were no longer publicly visible within months of being posted.
Source: Pew Research Center, 2024Judges warned
Judges in England and Wales have been formally warned that AI is being used to produce fake material, including text, images and video.
Source: Judicial AI guidance, October 2025Berkeley Protocol
The UN-published protocol for digital open-source investigation puts chain of custody and preservation at its centre.
Source: OHCHRArchiving is not the same as proving
Screenshots and web archives are how most open-source evidence is kept today. Both record what the collector’s own software saw or wrote down. Neither can show, on its own, that the content came from the website it appears to be from, which is exactly the point a hostile party will attack.
A Shorenet capture is witnessed in transit by our relay, which is independent of whoever captured it and cannot read the content. It is then sealed, so any later change shows, and anyone can verify it on their own equipment without going through us.
Where it fits
- Investigative journalism. Posts and pages that support a story, preserved before the subject deletes them.
- Human rights documentation. Open-source material that may reach a tribunal years later.
- Legal review. Something your lawyers can check before publication, rather than trust.
- Mapping networks. On supported platforms, captures become structured records of accounts, posts and messages and how they connect, so you can follow a network across your investigation. Every record links back to the sealed evidence.
- Collaboration. Records that partner organisations can verify independently.
Social media evidence in UK courts, and how to preserve a post.
What it does not do
- It does not verify that content is true. If a post shows a staged or synthetic scene, Shorenet proves the post was published, not that the scene is real.
- It does not identify who posted it. Attribution is still your investigation.
- It is independent of you, not of us. We operate the relay, and we say so. It routes your traffic but does not record where you browsed.
Preserve it while it’s still there.
Newsrooms and investigators can test the method through our evaluation programme before general release. We would rather hear the hard questions from you first.