Occupational risk

When the war in Ukraine broke out, social media was quickly flooded with graphic images and videos. Justin Seitz, my friend, mentor, and a seasoned OSINT researcher, vented to me that the gore was too much. Some members of the community believed showing graphic violence was important to communicate the vileness of war to the public, and to help researchers remain emotionally grounded and connected — and I believe them!

But frequent exposure to that kind of stuff comes with a cost, too. Just ask Justin.

Vicarious trauma (AKA secondary trauma) can strike when you get overwhelmed by the suffering you see other people experience. It comes for caregivers like social workers; it comes for social media content moderators; it also comes for researchers. The symptoms are similar to PTSD — anxiety, flashbacks, difficulty sleeping, etc.

OSINT OSHA? Oh, sure!

From what I saw, the OSINT community is still refining its understanding on how best to manage these types of stresses. I definitely recommend reading more on the subject, and this guide from Bellingcat by Giancarlo Fiorella is a great start. I’ve also heard great things about Dr. Alexa Keonig’s book Graphic: Trauma and Meaning in Our Online Lives (available on Amazon).

It struck me that the most commonly suggested techniques could be split roughly into 2 groups:

Self-care

• Take breaks
• Separate work space and personal space (don’t work in your bedroom)
• Make a point of spending time around other people during the day
• Explore therapy

Sensory disruption

• Mute videos by default
• Put other audio on in the background while you work, like white noise or music
• Turn off autoplay for videos in your browser’s settings
• Apply visual filters (like desaturation or blurring) to images and videos

The self-care recommendations are great but they apply to lots of folks, not just researchers, and are pretty well served by other tools and services. The second group, however…

The goggles, they do something

Enter Reduvic! Reduvic is a browser extension to help researchers manage the impact of graphic and upsetting media by turning images and media black-and-white. It’s designed to fit seamlessly into a researcher’s workflow.

1. Protection without obstruction

Instead of completely obscuring images, Reduvic modifies them while keeping them recognizable. That way, you don’t have to pick between seeing nothing and seeing too much. Plus, there’s no clunky interface or sign in or anything — just click the Reduvic icon to toggle it on or off.

2. Keeping you safe (in more ways than one)

Reduvic doesn’t make itself too easy to fingerprint. It does not expose any of its files to the wider web, and it uses randomized identifiers when modifying pages. The source code is also freely available on GitHub for you to review or fork.

3. It works where you do

Reduvic is available in the Chrome Web Store and the Mozilla Addons website, and has been tested to work with Google Chrome, Brave, Edge, and Firefox.

Get Reduvic for Chrome, Brave & Edge | Get Reduvic for Firefox

I want to hear from you

I wanted to release Reduvic as early as possible to start getting feedback on what works, what doesn’t, and what else might be helpful.

Please send any and all ideas, questions, and feedback to reduvic@littlewindlabs.com!

Stay safe out there y’all.

Phil