

Could HN stop participating in the witchhunt? - Uchikoma

The bomber suspect threads are disgusting. Smearing people, then back paddling. Cross posting from Reddit for karma whoring here drags this place down. Please stop.
======
nikcub
When this is all over I hope there is a decent post-portem look at reddit and
its relationship with the media, especially with the efforts to attempt to
find the Boston Marathon bombers.

The story of 'internet wizards find Boston suspects' was too good to not
publish. The media portrayed it as hackers using their intelligence and the
resources of the internet to track down criminals, but it ended up being
nothing more than some people flicking through photos and profiling based on
race, appearance etc.

In total I saw over two dozen people marked as 'suspects'. I open Facebook and
my non-tech friends are all sharing homemade 'WANTED' posters with full
pictures of the people identified. Everybody was suspect until they were
'cleared' - the very definition of a witch hunt. Digital vigilante justice.

Nobody learned their lesson, because it was only a couple of hours later that
the media were reporting that suspect #2 was the missing Brown kid. I switched
on prime time news in Australia _and the news that the Brown student was
terrorist suspect number two was the top story!_. Speechless.

I tried in vain to get the reddit threads removed and shutdown (IMO they
violate the 'no dox' rule) but got nowhere. The privacy right of individuals
are being torn apart by online mobs (I was told in a reply that if I have
nothing to hide I have nothing to worry about). It depresses me to think that
nothing will be learned from this entire experience.

This is exactly why the government feels like they should get involved in
regulating the internet, because we aren't taking care of it ourselves. I can
already see how a case will be put together next week using the reddit witch
hunt threads as a reason why the internet needs censorship. Think about what
our responses are going to be to that.

~~~
tgflynn
I've looked at the reddit threads a bit and it looked to me like a place where
discussion was going on and people were trying to help.

There is a big difference between sharing a photo and asking if it might
contain a suspect and posting a "wanted poster" or having national media
announce that someone is a suspect. The former is what I saw on reddit, if the
later happened it wasn't on that site.

There should be a way to have an online discussion without people jumping to
conclusions.

~~~
paganel
> I've looked at the reddit threads a bit and it looked to me like a place
> where discussion was going on and people were trying to help.

You're factually incorrect, or maybe you were just looking in the wrong place:
<http://i.imgur.com/R0CZtwR.png> and
[http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1co0d5/he...](http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1co0d5/hey_fuck_you_mods_sunil_tripathi_the_one_guy_you/)
and I guess there are countless others.

Not to mention that I learned the names of the wrongly accused "suspects" from
Hacker News first, but I guess we'll just keep digging our heads in the sand
and carry on like nothing has ever happened.

~~~
tgflynn
I'm not saying that all comments posted to the threads were appropriate, I'm
talking about the general tone of the discussion.

Every (even arguably) inappropriate comment I saw was quickly responded to by
others.

EDIT (Added) : Of course given human nature it's inevitable that some people
will jump to conclusions, but should that invalidate the discussion itself ? I
don't think so. It seems to me like banning criticism of the government
because some people might start a revolution.

------
swombat
From the guidelines:

 _Off-Topic: Most stories about politics, or crime, or sports, unless they're
evidence of some interesting new phenomenon. Videos of pratfalls or disasters,
or cute animal pictures._ If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-
topic.

~~~
tzs
Also from the guidelines:

"On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting. That includes
more than hacking and startups. If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the
answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."

Note that the "off-topic" guidelines contain two exceptions. The first
sentence provides an exception for interesting new phenomenon. The interaction
between social media, traditional media, and the police in this case is
interesting and new enough to arguably qualify. The "cover it on TV news"
sentence says it is probably off-topic, not that it certainly is.

~~~
leoedin
I'd argue that a post-event analysis of those interactions would be justified.
However, much of what was posted here really wasn't. There was comment threads
with minute-by-minute updates of events, links to images of suspects and links
to live police radios. I personally wouldn't consider any of that to be the
type of stuff that should be submitted to HN.

I think the thing that must be remembered is that almost nobody who reads HN
reads it in a vacuum. I'm willing to bet that almost every user here has an
account on another website which is more suitable for discussing current
events. HN isn't in competition with these sites, and it doesn't need to have
their breadth. This is a site for engineers and developers about technology.

~~~
pyre
You should definitely take this up with the site owner:
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575255>

------
DanBC
Strongly agree.

In fact, I'd go further. Almost all the threads about the bombs are pretty
much content-free. There's very little of interest to hackers. Even the stuff
that could have been interesting ("How do you examine very many photographs
and video clips for clues?") was left ignored.

I flagged a lot of threads. There's been some suggestions that flagging a
popular thread works against the person flagging. That's a shame if it's true,
because some threads just don't belong here even if they are popular.

------
leoedin
I completely agree. This isn't a place that people should come for live
updates on current events. There's plenty of sites that already cater for that
- please use them. This _isn't_ a general interest news site.

~~~
Evgeny
I read the post just a day or so ago about how the news are bad for you and
make you unhappy. I thought to myself 'good for me that I knew that already
and have limited my news intake to HN and HN only'.

There we go - looks like it's not possible to be on a strict news diet but
keep oneself updated with tech news only.

------
gokhan
Btw, Reddit folks should raise money to help Sunil's family finding their son.
They owe it to the family, since they badly broke hearts on that front.

~~~
randallsquared
Perhaps they could split the money, and half of it could help Sunil hide from
his family more effectively? :/

------
jkldotio
I think there is a stronger case to be made that the topic simply doesn't fit
hacker news.

~~~
Uchikoma
I agree, though I find the discussion what should be on hacker new more
complicated than the ethic discussion.

~~~
jeremysmyth
It's challenging because the only official documentation on the subject is
this:

 _On-Topic: Anything that good hackers would find interesting...anything that
gratifies one's intellectual curiosity. Off-Topic: Most stories about
politics, or crime, or sports..._

Speaking personally, I love reading about EFF taking the US government to
court, which is politics. I also love reading about the technical advancements
in Formula 1, which is sports. Sports and politics, yes, but also very
gratifying to my intellectual curiosity.

Here's the thing: I wouldn't want to see them on Hacker News, because I can
(and do) get them elsewhere. This particular community gives me things I can't
get elsewhere, and I love it for that. I don't want it to become another
Reddit (or even another Slashdot, or Digg, or Gawker, or TechCrunch, Cracked,
Metafilter, or ZDNet).

Hacker News is not (yet) a general purpose "news for nerds" or "all your
internet goodness curated", and the longer we can stave off its descent into
the general-purpose semi-curated things of somewhat geeky Internet interest,
as every other good site of any age seems to have descended to, the better.

~~~
DanBC
You've missed out the stuff about shallowly but intensely interesting which is
shown in the welcome message to new users. I don't know how to re-read this if
you lose the link.

(<http://ycombinator.com/newswelcome.html>)

> A crap link is one that's only superficially interesting. Stories on HN
> don't have to be about hacking, because good hackers aren't only interested
> in hacking, but they do have to be deeply interesting.

> What does "deeply interesting" mean? It means stuff that teaches you about
> the world. A story about a robbery, for example, would probably not be
> deeply interesting. But if this robbery was a sign of some bigger,
> underlying trend, then perhaps it could be.

> The worst thing to post or upvote is something that's intensely but
> shallowly interesting. Gossip about famous people, funny or cute pictures or
> videos, partisan political articles, etc. If you let that sort of thing onto
> a news site, it will push aside the deeply interesting stuff, which tends to
> be quieter.

EFF taking US Government to court could fit here, because it doesn't have to
be partisan politics, and it could be a deeply interesting discussion of legal
process. I've learnt a lot about US law from contributors here. "Vettel Wins"
is sports, "Redbull use X to help Vettel win" is probably tech.

I agree about not wanting to see them on HN; while they _could_ be discussed
well and in conformance to the site guidelines they're usually not.

------
manaskarekar
Disclaimer: Not saying what should be, just what is.

I don't come to HN for updates on current events, I come here for the
interesting commentary. I do not agree with the 'Vigilante' threads, which
will be flagged, but news threads with a healthy discussion have some value.

Have you looked at the comments on any news site article?

This may not be in line with HN's intended goal, but it's a side effect akin
to bringing critical minds to the water cooler conversation.

~~~
superbaconman
there's so much everyday news hitting hn that I only ever read the new
section. the hn community has become too large and its interests too
generalized. the lack of focus on personal projects and introductions to new
technology is destroying the once highly specialized community. if mods don't
start guiding the topics I'm afraid hn won't have anything left to offer.
topics like the events the unfolded this week are important, but their
discussion is more suited to Reddit. it would be hard for anyone to argue the
same level of discussion doesn't happen on Reddit, though I conceed you won't
get any karma for it.

------
iagomr
I think it's not the first day that at least 3 people die in a tragedy this
year, or even this month, what the hell not even this week. This is not the
place to discuss these matters, neither is very intelligent to participate in
this cynical media campaign.

------
brianbreslin
My question is, when it is a public service announcement that can protect or
prevent further harm to our community (say the MIT shooting last night), then
does it make sense? I agree the witch hunt stuff is appalling though.

~~~
atirip
May I ask "public service announcement" in which country? There are presently
more than 190 member States of the United Nations.

~~~
darkarmani
Does that include Taiwan which is a country but we aren't allowed to mention
it?

------
kbart
Totally agree that HN should not be a place for local news. I come here for
interesting _technical_ stories, topics and discussions and I would go to
cnn.com, nytimes.com etc. if I'm interested in USA news instead.

------
darkarmani
Can we stop comparing talking about people in photos as a witchhunt?

~~~
gee_totes
Good point. I think you might mean "to a witchhunt", though, not "as a
witchhunt". </GrammarNazi>

------
b6
I basically agree with OP, but this incident really made me wish there was a
better framework for collaboration between LE and amateurs.

For example, it would have been great if the FBI had put up a site with
instructions like "use this form to upload better pictures of this person".
Because seemingly within minutes of the FBI releasing really bad photos,
Reddit had found much better photos, knew their exact hats, etc. But the
communication between the two was incredibly haphazard.

------
CarlosT
Everybody hates a witch hunt until they see a witch. "Witch!"

------
k__
I thought, this is how Reddit works...

------
youngerdryas
One is dead the other will soon be dead and then everyone can go back to
posting about how horrible America is.

------
tpainton
And in end...it was exactly who they thought it was.

~~~
enterpriseos
Yep! Islamic terrorism as always.

~~~
smtddr
I see your account was created just for this single comment, to spread fear
and hate. I'm not replying to you for your sake; I'm just posting this here
for the rest of the HN folks because I'm beginning to think this vid[1] will
be needed in the days to come.

1\. <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQnxnYEVp4U>

~~~
tpainton
I would say his comment is simply reflecting on the odds. Its islamic
extremists who are spreading fear and hate. Who hijacked your religion? See
Beslan School Massacre on youtube.

~~~
smtddr
The problem with this kind of thinking is that you put the blame squarely on
religion. It shows a lack of consideration of what the _core_ cause is. Why do
they not like America? Did they just wake up one day and said "Okay, let's
blow 'em up". Some group of people got angry at America[1], then fooled a
bunch of religious people to believe following them is doing their deity's
wishes. Instead of just saying, "See! Islam is bad!" you should look to the
root of the issue. Same problem with just going around saying "black people
steal". When you state it like that, you make it sound like it's the skin
color that causes stealing; it lacks the full consideration of history and
what happened with this group of people and the current social-economics that
is not balanced. Whatever you think the reason is, I can tell you that the
color of your skin doesn't make you good or bad. Just like being religious
doesn't make you good or bad.

1\. And let me tell you, these folks have reason to be mad at USA. While I
understand blowing up people is never a reasonable reaction, religion is not
the origin of the problem.

EDIT: And I see your youtube vid link, it's the same issue. Religion is the
not the cause, it is exploited by people who want power.

~~~
tpainton
I actually did not blame religion. I blamed islamic radicals. But if you want,
I can somehow tie in the IRA.

