
Reflections on the Recent Boston Crisis - Lightning
http://blog.reddit.com/2013/04/reflections-on-recent-boston-crisis.html
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danso
Strange to see this modded down. This was a milestone in many ways in the area
of online citizen journal. This letter itself is kind of groundbreaking.
Rarely does a media company write a full-throated apology letter, and almost
never for the actions of users/readers who break their rules. I doubt we'll
ever get any such apology from the New York Post

~~~
chaz
I agree. I think this was an important closure to a situation that was
spiraling out of control. According to the Washington Post, one of the reasons
the FBI released the photos of the suspects on Thursday was to curb the
vigilante detective work.

    
    
      “Find people carrying black bags,” wrote the Reddit forum’s unnamed
      moderator. “If they look suspicious, then post them. Then people will
      try and follow their movements using all the images.”
      
      The moderator defended this strategy by arguing that “it’s been proven
      that a crowd of thousands can do things like this much quicker and better.
      . . . I’d take thousands of people over a select few very smart investigators
      any day.”
      
      In addition to being almost universally wrong, the theories developed via
      social media complicated the official investigation, according to law
      enforcement officials. Those officials said Saturday that the decision on
      Thursday to release photos of the two men in baseball caps was meant
      in part to limit the damage being done to people who were wrongly
      being targeted as suspects in the news media and on the Internet.
    

[http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/inside...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/inside-the-investigation-of-the-boston-marathon-
bombing/2013/04/20/19d8c322-a8ff-11e2-b029-8fb7e977ef71_story.html?tid=pm_pop)

