GETTR open source intelligence investigation tips

Gettr is a social media platform designed to meet the need for an alternative platform that limits censorship.

Gettr, an alternative technology platform that sells directly at American Conservatives, is the brainchild of Jason Miller, a former senior adviser and spokesman for President Trump. The name Gettr was inspired by the words "GET TRuth".

Gettr is self-described as “founded on the principles of free speech, independent thought and rejecting political censorship and “cancel culture”. Users can create posts, as well as comment, like, share, and repost posts on the platform. 

The following is an introduction to Gettr, which is used for open source intelligence investigations.

Profile Discovery

As a clone of Twitter, Gettr users have an account page that captures their account details, posts, retweets, media and likes. Gettr users can easily access content through a web browser or mobile app.

Gettr has a built-in search function that provides the best results when searching for profiles on the platform. Gettr allows search engines to index its sites, which means Gettr profiles and posts will appear in search results, so you can also search for content outside of the Gettr platform itself to conduct research.

When searching for profiles through the Gettr platform, you can search for usernames displayed in the nickname field, or in the search bar at the top of the page. Profiles with similar name matches and tags containing your search terms will be displayed as suggestions.

Clicking View All Results will provide a complete list of results for the search term, including profiles, posts, and hashtags. You can then click on the People tab of the search results to limit the results to show only accounts. Search results may be based on a variety of factors, including verification status, influence score, number of posts and keyword matches.

With Google Search Index, you can view a wide range of information from Gettr, such as posts, usernames and profiles. Here's how to get started:

1. gettr.com

By entering this simple command into a search engine such as Google, you are telling the search engine to only display pages from the website www.gettr.com. The ' site:' operator removes pages from any other sites from the search results, showing 94,500 results from gettr.com in Google's index.

2. gettr.com/post/

By appending /post/ to the end of our first query, we can narrow down the search results. When searching with this operator string, Google will only show us posts from Gettr that have been indexed by its system. Adding any keywords after this query will allow you to search for keywords in Gettr's content via Google without even visiting the site. When doing so, you should enter the search string in quotation marks.

3. gettr.com/user/

By appending /user/ to the end of our original query, you can collect the nicknames (possibly their first names) and usernames of Gettr users without visiting the Gettr site. If you’re looking for a particular person, you can add their first and last name, display name, or username after your ‘site:’ command to look for them specifically. 

It is important to understand that search engines can only show you pages that have been indexed, not any pages that already exist. As a result, brand new profiles and posts may not appear in the search results. This means that results in the Gettr platform search function may be more accurate because the platform will access content as soon as it is created.

From a Gettr user's profile, you can gather a range of useful information about the topic, including their profile picture, cover photo, nickname, description, verified status, username, location, website, join date, following and followers.

Image Extraction

Images can be easily extracted from the platform using three different methods. These methods apply to profile pictures, banner photos, and published photos.

The easiest way to extract an image is to simply click on the image to open it to full size and then right-click on the image so you can save the image directly to your device. When using this method, it is recommended that you first open the image in a new tab to open the full image, rather than saving a cropped image, such as an avatar with the platform cropped to a circle. The image will open in a new tab starting with the URL "https://media.gettr.com/".

The second way allows you to easily extract a profile photo from the user's profile page. Right-click anywhere on the page and click "View Page Source", which will open the source code for the page you are on. Once you are on this page you can search, using either CTRL + F or CMD + F, for the word 'media'. This will take you directly to the URLs for the images on the page.

The final way to extract images from Gettr is to right-click on the page and click "Inspect". This can be done on any page, such as a post, search page, or profile page.

When trying to extract an image from a single post using this method, it is recommended to click on the post to open it, rather than trying to extract it from the search results list, as locating the image can be time consuming. However, when trying to extract a full page of images, this method is much faster than scrolling down the page individually and opening each image in a new tab.

Once the Inspect window opens, you will need to navigate to Network in the top tab list and then select the Img tab in the lower tab list.

You can then right-click on the image you want to extract to open it in a new post. The image may open in a new tab at a reduced size. You can restore the image to its full size by editing the URL. At the end of the URL, before .jpg, there is a string that dictates the size of the image, i.e. '_500x0'. If you remove this string then the image will then be displayed in its full size.

Video Extraction

Videos are more difficult to extract from the platform than images. videos on Gettr are restricted, so it is not possible to save them by simply right-clicking on them. Videos are also stored and played as M3u8 files, which means that if you manage to extract them, they won't play easily in the traditional video player on your device. To enable you to save Gettr videos in the standard video format, you need to use the Chrome extensions:

CoCoCut: It allows you to convert M3u8 files to MP4 files, which you can then download.

To capture the original URL or download the raw file as an M3u8 file, you need to open up a post containing a video and right-click on it. You should then click 'Inspect' before navigating to the 'Network' tab and the 'Fetch/XHR' sub-tab. Within the Fetch/XHR results there will be several files relating to the video, which include files labeled with the strings 'out', 'audio', and '360p'. The full video file is the first result, labeled 'out.m3u8'. Clicking on this file, you will then find the full URL for the file in the Headers tab, under Request URL, within the General section.

To download the video as an MP4 file, simply install the CoCoCut Chrome extension. Once you open the Gettr page containing the video, the extension will display the update at the top of the page, which is the video detected by CoCoCut. Click on the extension logo and you will be able to download the video from the drop-down list.

Using tools like Knowlesys Intelligence System, you can automate the extraction of images and videos, making it easier and faster to analyze the data for your investigations in Gettr.