

Student falsely IDed by Reddit as Boston bomber found dead - alan_cx
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2013/04/25/sunil_tripathi_reddit_suspect_dead/

======
dkhenry
Since the title of this and all coverage I have seen of this is ambigous. It
appears the student comitted suicide _before_ being ID'ed by Reddit. Not the
other way around

~~~
dev360
Great - I'm happy we got that out of the way. Now the detectives over at 4chan
will feel much better.

------
bherms
It pisses me off that so many people are shaking their finger at the Reddit
community over grief caused by falsely identifying this kid as the bomber...
The real issue is that much of the media decided to do their reporting by
going to what amounts to a message board of speculation and reporting it as if
it were news. Yes, some users did get out of hand by posting on the family's
website, but in reality, that can be summed up more easily by saying "assholes
on the internet were assholes." Stop blaming the Reddit community for the
entire debacle. It was only a small percentage of the users as well.

~~~
citricsquid
There wasn't, as far as I can tell, any mainstream media reports about Sunil
being involved in the Boston marathon bombing, the only accusations were from
redditors _tricked_ by a faked police scanner report that supposedly IDed him
as the bomber.

Edit: A relevant comment from a journalist regarding the _situation_ :
[http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/1cvb9b/reflections_on_...](http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/1cvb9b/reflections_on_the_recent_boston_crisis/c9kca7o)

    
    
        As a member of the reddit community, I was really disappointed with the 
        Sunil Tripathi debacle. D'you know why his name wasn't widespread in 
        the press as a suspect? Because generally we like to ask police for 
        confirmation on a suspect name before publishing it.
    
        If reddit users want to act like journalists, they should follow the same 
        procedures. You're not special just because it's "the internet"

~~~
jmstout
When I was watching NBC the morning of the Watertown incident, during a phone
interview, one of their 'chief investigative correspondents' said, he wouldn't
say who, but a Brown University student that went missing in March was the
prime suspect. Given what he did say, he might as well have given the name.
Not excusing redditors by any means, but I did see it mentioned on national
television, for what it's worth.

------
jleader
The only redeeming factor, such as it is, is that he appears to have died
before the bombings. So Reddit caused his family great pain, but probably
wasn't a factor in causing his death.

~~~
jodrellblank
Reddit did not "cause them pain", the _people who harassed them_ did.

~~~
dromidas
Same argument about Nazi's vs. Jews. Nazi's didn't put them in internment
camps, the specific solders in the army did it. The rest of the army was not
to blame.

Of course if the Nazi party hadn't existed at all, those soldiers wouldn't
have had any reason to do it. So you can't completely absolve Reddit from
blame. But really the fact that anyone used a reddit forum to report or
investigate to begin with is laughable. That would be like going to
Somethingawful forums for dating advice.

------
michaelkscott
The title should say "Student falsely IDed by Reddit _and 4chan_ "...

~~~
omni
Or, more accurately, "Student falsely IDed by some users on massive popular
sites Reddit and 4chan."

I will never understand why it's acceptable to talk about the actions of a
small percentage of a user base as if they represent the entire group.

~~~
coldtea
> _I will never understand why it's acceptable to talk about the actions of a
> small percentage of a user base as if they represent the entire group._

Because if the group tolerates it, and is known to do that kind of thing
frequently, they DO represent it.

~~~
sli
The group as a whole has to be aware of it to tolerate it as a whole. This is
not the case with a lot of Reddit users. Personally, I didn't even know this
happened until these articles started popping up.

------
gwern
> Tripathi, who was reported to have suffered from depression, went missing on
> March 15 – over a month before the bombings that left three people dead and
> 264 wounded...Laura Lague, spokeswoman for the Providence police, told the
> Boston Globe that Tripathi's body had been spotted in the river by a Brown
> university rowing coach on Tuesday and that it had been identified by dental
> records, suggesting a long immersion. Foul play was not a factor, she
> confirmed.

------
recoiledsnake
HN comment thread discussing Tripathi being one of the bombers.

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575392>

