Level 2: Investigator – Course Two: Social Media & Emerging Platforms

Stay ahead of the curve. Investigate lesser-known platforms, analyze online behaviour, and leverage advanced tools for multilingual, metadata-rich intelligence gathering. Tailored for those seeking a deeper reach in the digital space.

Designed for all OSINT practitioners (intermediate)

Key Objectives:

• Go beyond mainstream platforms to investigate fringe networks where critical intelligence often hides.
• Deploy specialized tools to analyze privacy exposures and track digital behaviour across platforms.
• Leverage multilingual search capabilities & metadata analysis to extract intelligence that crosses language & border barriers

Course Overview

1. Lesser-Known Social Platforms
   Map the digital terrain of fringe networks and emerging platforms where hard-to-reach communities operate beyond mainstream visibility.
2. Investigating Online Shopping Channels
   Track fraudulent sellers, expose scam operations, and uncover deceptive activity hiding in plain sight across online marketplaces.
3. Investigating Weibo and WeChat
   Track fraudulent sellers, expose scam operations, and uncover deceptive activity hiding in plain sight across online marketplaces.
4. Investigating Telegram
   Infiltrate Telegram’s ecosystem by tracing usernames, monitoring groups, identifying bots, and extracting intelligence from media-rich public
   channels.
5. Investigating Discord
   Investigate Discord servers to monitor conversations, map community networks, and extract shared content for actionable intelligence.
6. Long-Form User Generated Content
   Explore how to identify, analyze, and extract intelligence from blogs, forums, and other long-form user-generated content.
7. Investigating Online News Sources
   Cut through media noise by filtering news coverage, detecting bias, and tracking how narratives develop and shift across sources.
8. Encoded Language: Emojis in OSINT
   Decode the hidden language of emojis used in coded communications and learn how to incorporate them into targeted OSINT search strategies.
9. Linguistics and Terminology Basics
   Master the evolving language of online communities — from slang and acronyms to localized terminology — to better interpret and contextualize
   digital intelligence.
10. Foreign Language Search
    Break language barriers by applying translation tools and native-language search techniques to conduct effective OSINT investigations across
    international targets.
11. Exploring Metadata in Social Content
    Analyze hidden data in media files to uncover user details and timelines.
12. Preserving Multimedia Files
    Systematically capture, preserve, and archive video, audio, and image content in formats that meet evidentiary standards for investigative and
    legal use.
13. AI Considerations in OSINT
    Artificial intelligence is transforming open-source investigations. You’ll learn how AI tools enhance OSINT processes, from data collection to
    analysis, while also examining their legal, ethical, and operational risks.
14. Query String Modification
    Manipulate URL structures and query strings to surface hidden files, indexed content, and web parameters that standard searches miss.