Lumen Researcher Interview Series: Phineas Rueckert - Forbidden Stories

Some of the most intriguing work done involving Lumen's data has been done by the team at Forbidden Stories. You can see a great example of that work here.

Recently, Lumen was fortunate enough to have Phineas Rueckert, a lead Project Coordinator at Forbidden Stories, take some time to tell us a little bit more about his work and how he leveraged Lumen.

Could you tell us a little bit about yourself?

• Before joining Forbidden Stories, I worked at the New York-based nonprofit Global Citizen, where I led the education beat on the content team. As a freelancer, I've published articles for Vice, The Nation, New Lines, Jacobin, The Dial and others. I have a joint master's degree in Journalism and International Affairs at Sciences Po, in Paris.

Tell us about the papers, articles, or work in general where you’ve used Lumen in your research?

In February 2023, Forbidden Stories published a months-long investigation into the world of disinformation mercenaries. This project, called Story Killers, stemmed from the 2017 death of Indian journalist Gauri Lankesh, who had investigated how fake news spreads in India. Taking forward Lankesh's work, Forbidden Stories brought together more than 100 journalists to investigate the various actors involved in the growing market for disinformation services.

As part of this research, Forbidden Stories accessed leaked internal documents from Eliminalia, a Spanish reputation management firm that uses questionable tactics to remove information from the internet. This is where our paths crossed with Lumen. Through our data, we had an unprecedented view into how the DCMA and GDPR data laws are abused to force publishers to take down their legitimate content, such as journalist investigations, through fraudulent copyright claims. The Lumen Database was crucial in allowing us to cross-check the copyright complaints being filed in the leaked data, in order to verify their authenticity.

What motivated you to use Lumen /look for the takedown notices in these instances?

My colleague Shawn Boburg at the Washington Post had heard of Lumen and had the idea to use this database to verify our documents. I have since used the Lumen database for other research on the reputation management sphere, which has not yet been published. Researcher access to Lumen is particularly useful for mapping patterns of takedown requests that use similar domains that often point to a company or individual with an interest in removing content from the internet.

How did the availability of the notices in Lumen enhance your ability to talk about the issues you wanted to highlight?

The Lumen notices are not only helpful in mapping out patterns, but also for storytelling. For example, through our research we were able to identify websites that were being used to launder the reputations of criminals, turning drug lords into chihuahua experts. The platform allows you to see not only the websites taken down, but also the ones that are used to claim copyright, which, when investigating the reputation management sphere, can help in identifying clients of companies like Eliminalia.

At which stage in your research did Lumen feature?

For the Eliminalia investigation, Lumen featured throughout. As mentioned above, the platform was useful for confirming information we had obtained elsewhere. But the expertise of the Lumen team was also useful in a later stage when it came time for context interviews. The team is responsive and incredibly knowledgeable about the types of copyright requests used to remove information from the internet, as well as the context within which these laws were developed and how they've come to be abused over time.

What are some other research tools that actively feature in your research?

As an investigative journalist, open-source research tools such as the Wayback Machine, TinEye and WhoIs domain tools help solidify early-stage research and can also help you find new leads. Bellingcat has many practical guides to using tools like these and doing open-source research.

From your perspective as a researcher, how important, in your opinion, is transparency through takedown notice sharing and related data?

Transparency in takedown notices is crucial for identifying bad-faith uses of copyright laws like the DMCA. Without databases like Lumen, public-interest information would be regularly and aggressively removed from the internet without any form of accountability. These tools are also important for putting pressure on platforms such as Google and Automattic (the owner of Wordpress) to ensure that they are aware of the breadth of the issue of copyright abuse