4 ms·

Student falsely IDed by Reddit as Boston bomber found dead

43 points by alan_cx 14y ago

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
- glass_of_water 14y ago
  No, read the article. He died before the accusations.
- smoyer 14y ago
  No ... there were rational voices here trying to stop the speculation. It's amazing to me that a community that prides itself on acting logically and based on data (A/B testing, metrics-based action, continuous everything including learning), didn't apply the same rigor to the speculation around the bombings. Shouldn't we be MORE careful with people's lives than our temporary (in the vast scheme of things) business interests?
- ryguytilidie 14y ago
  ..."Blood on our hands" is a pretty bad term to use when the kid was literally dead before any of these communities knew who he was...
dkhenry 14y ago
Since the title of this and all coverage I have seen of this is ambigous. It appears the student comitted suicide _before_ being ID'ed by Reddit. Not the other way around
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- dev360 14y ago
  Great - I'm happy we got that out of the way. Now the detectives over at 4chan will feel much better.
jleader 14y ago
The only redeeming factor, such as it is, is that he appears to have died before the bombings. So Reddit caused his family great pain, but probably wasn't a factor in causing his death.
- jodrellblank 14y ago
  Reddit did not "cause them pain", the people who harassed them did.
  - dromidas 14y ago
    Same argument about Nazi's vs. Jews. Nazi's didn't put them in internment camps, the specific solders in the army did it. The rest of the army was not to blame. Of course if the Nazi party hadn't existed at all, those soldiers wouldn't have had any reason to do it. So you can't completely absolve Reddit from blame. But really the fact that anyone used a reddit forum to report or investigate to begin with is laughable. That would be like going to Somethingawful forums for dating advice.
michaelkscott 14y ago
The title should say "Student falsely IDed by Reddit and 4chan"...
- yangtheman 14y ago
  Actually it should have been "by 4chan and agreed by some redditors". There were many redditors who questioned whether it was the same guy or not.
- coherentpony 14y ago
  No, the title should say, "Brown University student, missing since 15th of March, found dead."
  - random42 14y ago
    That would not make story interesting/relevant enough to be the tech news.
    - coherentpony 14y ago
      Correct, but I will not encourage ambiguous and sensational titles for the sake of 'being interesting/relevant enough to be tech news'.
- omni 14y ago
  Or, more accurately, "Student falsely IDed by some users on massive popular sites Reddit and 4chan." I will never understand why it's acceptable to talk about the actions of a small percentage of a user base as if they represent the entire group.
  - coldtea 14y ago
    >I will never understand why it's acceptable to talk about the actions of a small percentage of a user base as if they represent the entire group. Because if the group tolerates it, and is known to do that kind of thing frequently, they DO represent it.
bherms 14y ago
It pisses me off that so many people are shaking their finger at the Reddit community over grief caused by falsely identifying this kid as the bomber... The real issue is that much of the media decided to do their reporting by going to what amounts to a message board of speculation and reporting it as if it were news. Yes, some users did get out of hand by posting on the family's website, but in reality, that can be summed up more easily by saying "assholes on the internet were assholes." Stop blaming the Reddit community for the entire debacle. It was only a small percentage of the users as well.
- citricsquid 14y ago
  There wasn't, as far as I can tell, any mainstream media reports about Sunil being involved in the Boston marathon bombing, the only accusations were from redditors tricked by a faked police scanner report that supposedly IDed him as the bomber. Edit: A relevant comment from a journalist regarding the situation: http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/1cvb9b/reflections_on_the_recent_boston_crisis/c9kca7o http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/1cvb9b/reflections_on_... As a member of the reddit community, I was really disappointed with the Sunil Tripathi debacle. D'you know why his name wasn't widespread in the press as a suspect? Because generally we like to ask police for confirmation on a suspect name before publishing it. If reddit users want to act like journalists, they should follow the same procedures. You're not special just because it's "the internet"
  - jmstout 14y ago
    When I was watching NBC the morning of the Watertown incident, during a phone interview, one of their 'chief investigative correspondents' said, he wouldn't say who, but a Brown University student that went missing in March was the prime suspect. Given what he did say, he might as well have given the name. Not excusing redditors by any means, but I did see it mentioned on national television, for what it's worth.
- doktrin 14y ago
  That's kind of how groups, from sports teams to entire nations, work. To greater or lesser extents, minorities do in fact very often represent the majority and greater entity in the public eye. It's usually futile to attempt to hide behind rationalizations (or, in this case, blame shifting). Groups often police themselves for this very reason. Also, as mentioned elsewhere, the "media" didn't have all that much to do with this particular fiasco.
recoiledsnake 14y ago
HN comment thread discussing Tripathi being one of the bombers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575392
gwern 14y ago
> Tripathi, who was reported to have suffered from depression, went missing on March 15 – over a month before the bombings that left three people dead and 264 wounded...Laura Lague, spokeswoman for the Providence police, told the Boston Globe that Tripathi's body had been spotted in the river by a Brown university rowing coach on Tuesday and that it had been identified by dental records, suggesting a long immersion. Foul play was not a factor, she confirmed.

43 points by alan_cx 14y ago

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

glass_of_water 14y ago
No, read the article. He died before the accusations.
smoyer 14y ago
No ... there were rational voices here trying to stop the speculation. It's amazing to me that a community that prides itself on acting logically and based on data (A/B testing, metrics-based action, continuous everything including learning), didn't apply the same rigor to the speculation around the bombings. Shouldn't we be MORE careful with people's lives than our temporary (in the vast scheme of things) business interests?
ryguytilidie 14y ago
..."Blood on our hands" is a pretty bad term to use when the kid was literally dead before any of these communities knew who he was...

dkhenry 14y ago

Since the title of this and all coverage I have seen of this is ambigous. It appears the student comitted suicide _before_ being ID'ed by Reddit. Not the other way around

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
dev360 14y ago
Great - I'm happy we got that out of the way. Now the detectives over at 4chan will feel much better.

jleader 14y ago

The only redeeming factor, such as it is, is that he appears to have died before the bombings. So Reddit caused his family great pain, but probably wasn't a factor in causing his death.

jodrellblank 14y ago
Reddit did not "cause them pain", the people who harassed them did.
- dromidas 14y ago
  Same argument about Nazi's vs. Jews. Nazi's didn't put them in internment camps, the specific solders in the army did it. The rest of the army was not to blame. Of course if the Nazi party hadn't existed at all, those soldiers wouldn't have had any reason to do it. So you can't completely absolve Reddit from blame. But really the fact that anyone used a reddit forum to report or investigate to begin with is laughable. That would be like going to Somethingawful forums for dating advice.

michaelkscott 14y ago

The title should say "Student falsely IDed by Reddit and 4chan"...

yangtheman 14y ago
Actually it should have been "by 4chan and agreed by some redditors". There were many redditors who questioned whether it was the same guy or not.
coherentpony 14y ago
No, the title should say, "Brown University student, missing since 15th of March, found dead."
- random42 14y ago
  That would not make story interesting/relevant enough to be the tech news.
  - coherentpony 14y ago
    Correct, but I will not encourage ambiguous and sensational titles for the sake of 'being interesting/relevant enough to be tech news'.
omni 14y ago
Or, more accurately, "Student falsely IDed by some users on massive popular sites Reddit and 4chan." I will never understand why it's acceptable to talk about the actions of a small percentage of a user base as if they represent the entire group.
- coldtea 14y ago
  >I will never understand why it's acceptable to talk about the actions of a small percentage of a user base as if they represent the entire group. Because if the group tolerates it, and is known to do that kind of thing frequently, they DO represent it.

bherms 14y ago

It pisses me off that so many people are shaking their finger at the Reddit community over grief caused by falsely identifying this kid as the bomber... The real issue is that much of the media decided to do their reporting by going to what amounts to a message board of speculation and reporting it as if it were news. Yes, some users did get out of hand by posting on the family's website, but in reality, that can be summed up more easily by saying "assholes on the internet were assholes." Stop blaming the Reddit community for the entire debacle. It was only a small percentage of the users as well.

citricsquid 14y ago
There wasn't, as far as I can tell, any mainstream media reports about Sunil being involved in the Boston marathon bombing, the only accusations were from redditors tricked by a faked police scanner report that supposedly IDed him as the bomber. Edit: A relevant comment from a journalist regarding the situation: http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/1cvb9b/reflections_on_the_recent_boston_crisis/c9kca7o http://www.reddit.com/r/blog/comments/1cvb9b/reflections_on_... As a member of the reddit community, I was really disappointed with the Sunil Tripathi debacle. D'you know why his name wasn't widespread in the press as a suspect? Because generally we like to ask police for confirmation on a suspect name before publishing it. If reddit users want to act like journalists, they should follow the same procedures. You're not special just because it's "the internet"
- jmstout 14y ago
  When I was watching NBC the morning of the Watertown incident, during a phone interview, one of their 'chief investigative correspondents' said, he wouldn't say who, but a Brown University student that went missing in March was the prime suspect. Given what he did say, he might as well have given the name. Not excusing redditors by any means, but I did see it mentioned on national television, for what it's worth.
doktrin 14y ago
That's kind of how groups, from sports teams to entire nations, work. To greater or lesser extents, minorities do in fact very often represent the majority and greater entity in the public eye. It's usually futile to attempt to hide behind rationalizations (or, in this case, blame shifting). Groups often police themselves for this very reason. Also, as mentioned elsewhere, the "media" didn't have all that much to do with this particular fiasco.

recoiledsnake 14y ago

HN comment thread discussing Tripathi being one of the bombers. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5575392

gwern 14y ago

> Tripathi, who was reported to have suffered from depression, went missing on March 15 – over a month before the bombings that left three people dead and 264 wounded...Laura Lague, spokeswoman for the Providence police, told the Boston Globe that Tripathi's body had been spotted in the river by a Brown university rowing coach on Tuesday and that it had been identified by dental records, suggesting a long immersion. Foul play was not a factor, she confirmed.