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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 system

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 14y ago
Reddit was worthless. It libelled countless people for the "crime" of attending the Boston marathon whilst carrying a backpack, or worse, being "brown".
k-mcgrady 14y ago
There is a reason the police and media reported much more slowly than Reddit - they tried to confirm information before releasing it. Most of information that originated on Reddit was wrong. It's true that the media also reported a lot of incorrect information but they usually confirmed the important facts before releasing them.
PavlovsCat 14y ago
Sure, so it helped (some) people to deal with this; but sit-ups would have done the same, or re-assuring your muslim neighbour that you don't think they're a terrorist. There are so many ways to cope, and many ways that actually are constructive, instead of just feeling that way. 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. Try being worried about the people in Gitmo, hours later worrying that all attention and energy will focused on emotions and speculations instead, and being proven right.
sirobviouspoint 14y ago
> 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. Spreading information faster than people could correctly evaluate it is exactly what caused this problem. Doing it more would just end up with more witch hunts. Your desire to jump to instant conclusions about complex issues is, quite frankly, dangerous and troubling. No, we should never leap to conclusions or immediately try to solve the case based on the new data coming in the instant it does. There is a reason that police are slow to say things and that they investigate leads before making claims. So they don't ruin innocent lives more often than they already do - and reddit doesn't have any such care.
wjamesg 14y ago
>vig·i·lan·te (noun): A member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority I agree that blaming Reddit is ridiculous. It seems like so many people have their panties in a wad about this, and I'm struggling to understand their expectations. Outliers aside, can one really consider the /r/findbostonbombers folks in the wrong? Do they require legal authority (per above definition) to do what they are doing? Are they violating any laws? Sure, they may include idiots espousing falsehoods in "witchhunt" fashion...but isn't the onus on readers to realize the difference between sources (social media vs. legitimate new reporting)? This is crowdsourcing in action. It's changing the dynamics of news and dissemination of information. I foresee the development of some type of guidelines or protocol for future "Current events of significance," perhaps denoted similarly as on Wikipedia [1]. If not imposed by the content providers themselves (Reddit et. al.), then eventually by legislation. The objective would be to reasonably control (not restrict or censor!) the dissemination of information to minimize adverse consequences inherent with the flow of data. [1] http://imgur.com/LzEvgqX http://imgur.com/LzEvgqX

gazrogers 14y ago

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

k-mcgrady 14y ago

There is a reason the police and media reported much more slowly than Reddit - they tried to confirm information before releasing it. Most of information that originated on Reddit was wrong. It's true that the media also reported a lot of incorrect information but they usually confirmed the important facts before releasing them.

PavlovsCat 14y ago

Sure, so it helped (some) people to deal with this; but sit-ups would have done the same, or re-assuring your muslim neighbour that you don't think they're a terrorist. There are so many ways to cope, and many ways that actually are constructive, instead of just feeling that way. 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. Try being worried about the people in Gitmo, hours later worrying that all attention and energy will focused on emotions and speculations instead, and being proven right.

sirobviouspoint 14y ago

> 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. Spreading information faster than people could correctly evaluate it is exactly what caused this problem. Doing it more would just end up with more witch hunts. Your desire to jump to instant conclusions about complex issues is, quite frankly, dangerous and troubling. No, we should never leap to conclusions or immediately try to solve the case based on the new data coming in the instant it does. There is a reason that police are slow to say things and that they investigate leads before making claims. So they don't ruin innocent lives more often than they already do - and reddit doesn't have any such care.

wjamesg 14y ago

>vig·i·lan·te (noun): A member of a self-appointed group of citizens who undertake law enforcement in their community without legal authority I agree that blaming Reddit is ridiculous. It seems like so many people have their panties in a wad about this, and I'm struggling to understand their expectations. Outliers aside, can one really consider the /r/findbostonbombers folks in the wrong? Do they require legal authority (per above definition) to do what they are doing? Are they violating any laws? Sure, they may include idiots espousing falsehoods in "witchhunt" fashion...but isn't the onus on readers to realize the difference between sources (social media vs. legitimate new reporting)? This is crowdsourcing in action. It's changing the dynamics of news and dissemination of information. I foresee the development of some type of guidelines or protocol for future "Current events of significance," perhaps denoted similarly as on Wikipedia [1]. If not imposed by the content providers themselves (Reddit et. al.), then eventually by legislation. The objective would be to reasonably control (not restrict or censor!) the dissemination of information to minimize adverse consequences inherent with the flow of data. [1] http://imgur.com/LzEvgqX http://imgur.com/LzEvgqX