

Boston bombing: How Internet detectives got it very wrong - greyman
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22214511

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pdevr
Professionals, even though they are not perfect, tend to perform better than
amateurs most of the time. The few times amateurs get it right, it becomes
news because those events are statistically rare.

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just2n
Because the instances in which sufficient evidence exists to find a suspect
from resources made public (often times a single photo or a short, low quality
video) are rare themselves.

Should we just ignore the fact that the FBI had access to resources that
would've certainly resulted in the amateurs coming to the same conclusions? A
video of a man dropping a bag which then exploded -- it doesn't take a
professional to guess he's involved.

~~~
pdevr
Up voted for discussion. It is not just about data (video, photo, etc). It is
about how such resources are utilized as well. Professionals have better
processes. They can draw upon their experience, as well as the experience of
others within their profession as well. An amateur, even if he gets the data,
may not know how to process it the right way. He/she would also won't be as
good as a professional in eliminating noise and isolating signals which help
in moving towards the end goal.

This is especially true in specialized professions like that of a national law
enforcement officer.

~~~
just2n
I don't disagree. I think in general, there aren't enough professionals given
the amount of crime that happens. This is a notable counter-example. The
number of people working on this case professionally is/was staggering.
Usually, though, it's a town detective that's got 20 cases open, and a few
free eyeballs can definitely be of huge benefit.

Some professional processes appear not to work well under this environment,
too. For one, professional investigators compile a list of everyone who could
be a suspect, and then disqualify them methodically and quickly. The reddit
discussions established many potential suspects, but had no real way to
disqualify them. The unfortunate result is that news media picked this up and
the disqualifications came from public statements -- definitely not the way
such a thing should work, and having your name publicly attached to a crime is
really terrible. I'm not happy this happened, and I place blame primarily on
the people who didn't bother to look at what was happening and instead took a
picture with a box around someone as an indication that they were a suspect.
Instead, it was just a picture meant to draw attention to something that seems
suspicious for discussion, for cross references with other images, and with
potential information people have that could be forwarded to the FBI as a tip.

It also definitely showed that there's a very high noise to signal ratio in
this, most likely due to the chaotic nature of an open forum like reddit. It's
not ideal in this regard, but I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand because it has
shown that it can be a valuable resource if used correctly.

------
chestnut-tree
There's good related article about twitter and big news stories (including
reaction to the Boston bombs). All online discussion sites produce the same
problems: endless conjecture, half-truths, outright falsities. How do you sift
fact from fiction?

[http://simonnricketts.tumblr.com/post/48115760648/twitter-
an...](http://simonnricketts.tumblr.com/post/48115760648/twitter-and-news-the-
canary-down-the-mine)

------
kosei
This is just a sad showing of fear-mongering mob mentality. Sadly, I expected
more from these communities.

~~~
just2n
That's absolutely not what happened in that subreddit. The people who took the
discussions out of context and tried to make things go viral outside of that
reddit were the problem makers.

I watched pretty much everything that went on there, and everything these
stories about "internet sleuthing gets it wrong" say is wrong. They're just
sensationalist headlines. Journalists these days don't really care to get it
right (you should note that many news outlets published factually incorrect
data regarding the bombing claiming it was from a reliable source), they just
want eyeballs.

