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As seems to be the norm these days, the initial HackerNews comments miss the whole damned point. Yes, Reddit is a platform. However, it's a platform that they

As seems to be the norm these days, the initial HackerNews comments miss the whole damned point. Yes, Reddit is a platform. However, it's a platform that they do moderate- usually heavily. Reddit actually has quite a history of stopping witch hunts, ever since they started having problems with people posting user information, or inciting people to harass someone off-site. They've been quite successful at it, and the community is thankful. However, those were always related to cases that didn't have any reason whatsoever to have large groups involved- they were to harass community members, some small-name celebrities, or people with opinions that are unpopular on Reddit. This was the first time that it was something that theoretically, Reddit could do some good with- and has had a bit of luck in doing this, albeit for much smaller crimes, in the past, by digging up license plate numbers, or giving advice that led to figuring a suspect out(usually stuff like hit and runs, or technology robberies). Obviously, this taught them that there is no good time to let the Reddit hunt go. That it should always be moderated, every time, out of existence. You could say that they should've known that going in- but then again, CNN, The New York Post, Twitter, and HackerNews fucked this shit up as well. Everyone but the feds did. So get off the high horse.

bargl 14y ago
I think the point here is that a witch hunt is never ok. In some of the situations you listed, people are asking for help in finding someone who wronged them. In this case the wronged party were not asking for help and it was offered up freely. I think that the idea of reddit finding peoples stolen bikes, phones, etc is typically less of an issue because of the scope of it. In this case the driving factor was fear and anger, much like what happened after 911. The point as I see it is that you should never hunt for someone to blame out of fear or anger. And you are right many people did it, Steven Colbert had an awesome skit making fun of the Post. But here, HN is our community and to see that kind of behavior happen here is disappointing. I'd like to see a policy enacted where posts like that are brought down in the future and not allowed to go on. Witch hunts are a major problem with this means of communication, it just lends itself well to it, and it needs to be stamped out. That's the point.
sageikosa 14y ago
So...when the crowd get large enough, its time to grab the pitchforks as well, for fear of being skewered oneself? It is always when the mob gets cackled that cooler heads need to prevail. Mob action works by social reinforcement, someone needs to be the cobalt rods in the reactor, or you need to stay out of the exclusion zone. The Feds, for their "credit", have been burned by prematurely releasing investigative material before, and know that it can skew the information the receive...it generates more noise and lawsuits.
shardling 14y ago
>However, those were always related to cases that didn't have any reason whatsoever to have large groups involved- they were to harass community members, some small-name celebrities, or people with opinions that are unpopular on Reddit. Not the case -- there were plenty of times (like the soldier kicking a puppy off a cliff) where most people would agree that identifying the perp would be a good thing. I'm not sure why they thought this incident would be different; the blog post doesn't articulate that directly.

bargl 14y ago

I think the point here is that a witch hunt is never ok. In some of the situations you listed, people are asking for help in finding someone who wronged them. In this case the wronged party were not asking for help and it was offered up freely. I think that the idea of reddit finding peoples stolen bikes, phones, etc is typically less of an issue because of the scope of it. In this case the driving factor was fear and anger, much like what happened after 911. The point as I see it is that you should never hunt for someone to blame out of fear or anger. And you are right many people did it, Steven Colbert had an awesome skit making fun of the Post. But here, HN is our community and to see that kind of behavior happen here is disappointing. I'd like to see a policy enacted where posts like that are brought down in the future and not allowed to go on. Witch hunts are a major problem with this means of communication, it just lends itself well to it, and it needs to be stamped out. That's the point.

sageikosa 14y ago

So...when the crowd get large enough, its time to grab the pitchforks as well, for fear of being skewered oneself? It is always when the mob gets cackled that cooler heads need to prevail. Mob action works by social reinforcement, someone needs to be the cobalt rods in the reactor, or you need to stay out of the exclusion zone. The Feds, for their "credit", have been burned by prematurely releasing investigative material before, and know that it can skew the information the receive...it generates more noise and lawsuits.

shardling 14y ago

>However, those were always related to cases that didn't have any reason whatsoever to have large groups involved- they were to harass community members, some small-name celebrities, or people with opinions that are unpopular on Reddit. Not the case -- there were plenty of times (like the soldier kicking a puppy off a cliff) where most people would agree that identifying the perp would be a good thing. I'm not sure why they thought this incident would be different; the blog post doesn't articulate that directly.