

Reddit, Boston and the missing student - nreece
http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2013/04/reddit-boston-and-missing-student

======
nlh
To some extent, those that are summarily decrying the "actions of reddit" are
judging with the benefit of hindsight. Here's my take:

I believe the people who participated in those threads on reddit/4chan/etc.
we're actually, truly, trying to help. (I'm not one of them, but I watched
much of this unfold).

Some folks spent hours pouring over any publicly-available images they could
find to see if anything stuck out. They looked for patterns, looked for
backpacks, tried to match up people to different pictures, etc.

Had this gone the other way -- had one of those pictures been of the suspects
and had one of the "Internet sleuths" circled one of the brothers instead of a
random innocent person with a bulging backpack, we'd be having a very
different discussion about what heros the crowd can be and of the virtues of
crowd sourcing in the modern age, etc. and frankly, had that happened our
praise would be just as misplaced. Shoot a machine gun randomly around you and
kill a bad guy, you're a hero. Kill a good guy, and you're the enemy. Still
doesn't meant it was a good idea to shoot like that :)

So now they got it wrong. And that's going to happen. And now we're vilifying
everyone.

Here's where I think the line should have been drawn, and the lesson that we
all should learn from this: I think, actually, had folks just stopped at the
"this seems suspicious" stage and sent that info to the guys who really have
details (the FBI), that actually could have been helpful. I know if I were an
intelligence analyst, I'd certainly find it even slightly helpful for someone
to do even a cursory pre-examination for me. Sure, the kids don't know all the
real techniques or have all the real tools, but even 10 minutes saved in
picking out some potential people to cross off the list can be helpful.

However -- the line should have been drawn there. Find the "interesting"
items, alert the authorities, and let the take it from there. No names. No
accusations. And certainly no front-page-of-the-New-York-Post publishing (and
that blame lies squarely with the fine folks at the NYP, not reddit).

It boils down to knowing the limits of your abilities. The crowd is good at
scanning a lot of data and raising its hand at things that stick out.

The crowd is not good at being an actual intelligence analyst.

~~~
itafroma
While I don't doubt that there might be some people who could've gone either
way on crowdsourced vigilantism but are now vocally against it now that it has
failed, people were speaking out about how colossally bad of an idea it was
from the start[1], for exactly the reasons it ultimately failed.

As you said, the crowd is no good at this, but it didn't take this tragedy for
people to realize that. That what Reddit was trying to do was a bad idea has
historical basis, as well: just look at the Umbrella Man from the JFK
assassination investigations and conspiracy theories[2][3] and more recently,
the case of Richard Jewell during the 1996 Atlanta Olympics bombing[4].

[1]: [http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/hey-
re...](http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/hey-reddit-
enough-boston-bombing-vigilantism/275062/)

[2]: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iuoZWb9gqv0>

[3]:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_Man_(JFK_assassination...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umbrella_Man_\(JFK_assassination\))

[4]: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Jewell>

~~~
doktrin
To piggyback on [1], most of the commentary I saw here on HN was quite guarded
& skeptical to the internet sleuthing. To paint this as a "20/20 hindsight
only" situation is misleading.

------
reustle
I find it funny when people talk about reddit, 4chan, etc as a single group.
"Reddit should really not do this". Really? It's like saying Brooklyn should
really stop being so hipster. Not only is it a very small portion of the
entire group, but they aren't about to stop doing what they're doing because
of a few articles.

~~~
socialist_coder
To be fair though, 90% of reddit is the "reddit hivemind".

~~~
barristan
Yes, this seems to be the nature of communities both online and offline. A
community becomes known for something like hipsters in Brooklyn, cat memes in
Reddit, or motherhood paraphernalia in Pinterest. More people of the
demographic with the same mindset join and stay, whereas everyone else feel
unwelcome and gradually leave.

~~~
ianstallings
I left Reddit a while back because I felt this way. I'm a conservative and on
that site it's like being a social pariah. I'd rather just keep my thoughts to
myself from now on.

~~~
pc86
Serious question: how has this differed from HN, if at all?

The few times I've been in a political discussion on HN (which is admittedly
rare), it's been a crap shoot between a reasonable but clearly left-of-center
discussion and "conservatives are the most evil thing imaginable and they
clearly lack any intellect."

~~~
ianstallings
Well here at HN they quickly steer the car back on to the track and disuade
anything that isn't technical or related to "hacking". The ones that slip
through I just ignore. The signal to noise ratio is much better and I feel
like I can focus on tech here. Reddit is too wide open for that.

------
sriramk
I feel so sorry for the Tripathis. Apart from their son/brother being missing
they just got put through hell for 24 hours. Sadly, Reddit can't offer up a
collective apology.

In light of what we know, this Reddit thread makes for such sad reading.
[http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1cn9ga/is_missing_st...](http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1cn9ga/is_missing_student_sunil_tripathi_marathon_bomber/)

~~~
danso
Reddit is a discussion board made up of individuals with widely varying
viewpoints, motives, and ages...what would a collective apology look like? The
closest thing to official Reddit action on this is when a moderator of
r/findbostonbombers shut discussion down on Sunil 14 hours ago:

[http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1cnafx/mo...](http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1cnafx/mod_note_any_more_posts_on_the_missing_guy_will/)

The mod was ridiculed when Sunil's name was reportedly mentioned on scanners
hours later but he/she stood their ground.

Demanding reddit to collectively hang their head in shame would be like asking
all of Russia to apologize on behalf of the alleged actions of these ethnic
Chechens...it's a bit impractical and overestimates the cohesiveness of the
group

~~~
doktrin
Obviously Reddit can't offer a collective apology, the parent even said as
much.

However, since there are obviously individuals who were willing to take credit
on behalf of Reddit ("Reddit was right!", "Historic thread!"), it stands to
reason that the inverse is also possible.

In the "duh-factor" statement of the day : groups are made up of people, and
we shouldn't hide behind the amorphousness of a group to avoid taking
responsibility for our actions. I'm sure the family would appreciate a few
retractions, even if they didn't represent reddit/4chan/the internet as a
whole.

~~~
trhtrsh
Symmetry fallacy. Saying "Reddit was right" doesn't make Reddit wrong, it
makes one more wrongsayer wrong.

~~~
doktrin
I thought I was pretty explicit in stating that this had to do with specific
individuals?

------
rpledge
I thought 'Racist Where's Waldo' is a very good 3 word summary

~~~
drcube
Except they didn't say that. What the hell is "Where's Wally"? Are they trying
to avoid trademark infringement or something?

~~~
omaranto
Where's Wally? is a famous British series of picture books that are used to
play a game of spotting a certain character named Wally. They are published in
many countries around the world and in two of them, the US and Canada, I
think, Wally was renamed Waldo.

------
lbrandy
If we are going to blame "reddit" and "the internet", are we also blaming "the
media" for the cnn false report and the nypost cover photo?

I have a hard time finding the collective responsibility of "the internet"
materially different from "the media".

~~~
itafroma
Yes, people are. Off the top of my head, one prominent example was Jon
Stewart: [http://www.mediaite.com/tv/stewart-tears-apart-cnn-for-
compl...](http://www.mediaite.com/tv/stewart-tears-apart-cnn-for-completely-
fcking-wrong-boston-reporting-human-centipede-of-news/)

------
kaze
Sunil Tripathi (or his parents) would do well to take legal action against
Reddit for facilitating this garbage, if the final legal reports support the
assessment that Sunil was not involved.

~~~
mpyne
I'm honestly surprised to see this opinion on HN, the defender of the free
Internet.

Should the family also take legal action against the ISPs of the Reddit users
involved, simply for "facilitating" this garbage?

~~~
k-mcgrady
It's nothing to do with the free internet. Accusing someone of murder with
absolutely no proof could be considered libel.

Edi: I wasn't accusing Reddit of libel. It's just a platform. The individuals
who posted the comments would be the ones committing libel.

~~~
mpyne
It might be libel in the U.K., but the standard for such is a bit higher in
the U.S. Which is probably a good thing, on the whole, as otherwise we'd have
had to destroy the Internet ten years ago based on its usage as a libel-
launching platform.

~~~
k-mcgrady
Is releasing photos of someone and accusing them of murder really not
considered libel in the US? It seems like quite an extreme case of libel to me
(although IANAL).

~~~
mpyne
Freedom of speech is kind of a big thing around here, yes.

You have to remember the context: Some nearly anonymous asshole points a
finger and says that so-and-so is the bomber, with no real concrete evidence.
It's practically a farce at that stage, only idiots could fall for that.

Unfortunately for Sunil, there _are_ a lot of idiots online (and in the media,
apparently).

On the other hand, entities like the NY Post _should_ have known better. They
presumably pay "journalists" to fact-check (so there's a higher standard of
quality expected), and they understand that it imparts a higher expectation on
what they _do_ print, which means it's more likely that people would believe
such an accusation.

So Sunil might even have a case against professional outfits like these,
especially since he wasn't previously a public figure. But against random
people from the Internet there's not really any hope of a libel charge
sticking.

Maybe some states would have "cyber-bullying" legislation that would apply
though (assuming it's not struck down as unconstitutional).

------
talmand
Really? Someone in the news media pointing fingers at others for reporting bad
information?

~~~
colin_jack
Yup, and they are quite correct to point it out.

~~~
talmand
So I guess I can expect their analysis in the coming days at their own
failings?

------
wtvanhest
This will be a new facet of our culture. This crisis has been a landmark
crisis, one that has paralyzed Boston for 5 days and which highlights all
these systems for information distribution. I can't imagine how many new users
Reddit will have after today.

People needed a way to deal with this. I also went through all the reddit
examples. I found them to be unconvincing but the act of looking for the guy
made me feel much better.

Until you walk the mile to work looking at every single person with a backpack
hoping they are not about to bomb a T station, you don't know what that it is
like.

The police and media need to deal with reddit by making better information
available faster. Reddit is their competition now and they should recognize it
as a disruptive force. Just like Uber, I don't want it regulated away.

Blaming "reddit" is ridiculous. We should put the blame on inept reporting and
far too slow of reporting from police. Had they done their jobs faster, Reddit
would have been worthless.

[edit] phrasing

[Added] Clearly from the up and down voting I have been getting, my comment is
highly polarizing for this community.

My point is simple: Reddit, digital cameras and the internet is here to stay.
This new reality means that we need to embrace natural human behavior as best
as possible and only attempt to adjust it whenever 100% necessary. I get that
people here think it should be adjusted, but I feel that the police and media
should change their strategy first, then see what happens on reddit etc. over
the long term.

The release of random information to different media groups including leaks
and not maintaining constant contact with the public through an official forum
should be viewed as unacceptable.

~~~
gazrogers
Reddit _was_ worthless. It libelled countless people for the "crime" of
attending the Boston marathon whilst carrying a backpack, or worse, being
"brown".

------
johnward
The reddit thread started with good intents. From what I saw (and I didn't
follow it very much) the goal was to name _possible suspects_. They did this
by look for people with large backpacks who were later seen without them.

The problem is that redditors are your average everyday people. Some people
don't understand that "possible suspect" doesn't mean "this guy is a
terrorist, get him". This mentality is not just reddit. It exist in our
country already. Each time a suspect is pictured on TV, they already guilty in
the minds of many viewers. It seems that most people don't understand our
"innocent until _proven_ guilty" justice system.

------
steven2012
I think an interesting question is, what techniques could have improved the
crowdsourcing attempts by reddit, 4chan, etc.

Obviously there's a huge amount of training that had the FBI zero-in on the
terrorists. Was it different data they had access to, or was it simply the
techniques that they used, and if so, can they be taught en masse?

To me, a large, motivated source of volunteer work like reddit or 4chan when
looking for a needle in a haystack might be valuable in the future if
something like this arises again.

~~~
jack-r-abbit
In the beginning, "crowd-sourcing" should have been limited to anyone and
everyone that had video and photos from the scene to upload them to a central
DB. Then everyone can sift through and look for stuff... but instead of
spewing their speculations all over the Net, let the FBI know so someone at
the FBI can continue.

Once the FBI had photos of two people they needed help finding... THAT is when
the crowd-sourcing really helped. There was a focused mission so it was easier
to stay on target. Before that, it was just a (partially racially charged)
cluster fuck.

------
corresation
From TFA - "His name turned up on the Boston Police Department's scanner early
this morning"

Citation required. This is gaining truth through repeated assertion, but
people looking for actual verification seem to be coming up short (one person
could recall hearing this general police chatter including the word "Sammy",
which apparently was enough, proving out what a confirmation bias is).
Remember when there were broad claims of "confirmation" that the FBI were
looking for the same individuals that had been widely, and mistakenly,
identified? Only that wasn't actually true.

The danger of large crowds working loosely together is that not every
participant has good intentions, and not every participant is mentally
balanced. In the absence of legitimate information, someone maliciously
dropping false information bombs in the middle of a well meaning conversation
can dramatically mislead the herd.

------
losl
I don't think I've seen anything as douchey as embedding your own tweets in an
article.

