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Yeah, I found Reddit's investigative journalism superb during the Boston Marathon Bombing /s

mcintyre1994 13y ago
In fairness wasn't that a subreddit? It probably got posted and on the front page a few times, but it's very different to the live news in big front page news threads referenced. An example is the showdown there, the top live news comment was the best I saw for the events anywhere.
- svenkatesh 13y ago
  It moved to a subreddit when the thread in /news or /worldnews got too big (I don't remember specifics). In any case, the effects of the witchhunt weren't limited to that subreddit anyway... the users started harassing Sunil's parents on Facebook and began calling LEO with their harebrained theory. There's a reason that vigilante justice isn't legal in most of the civilized world.
toomuchtodo 13y ago
One mistake ruins the entire foundation of crowdsourced information! Never trust forums for info! /S
- svenkatesh 13y ago
  You're right, that was the only instance in which Reddit was wrong. Ever. /s
  - Gigablah 13y ago
    All journalistic entities have been wrong multiple times before, so we should only trust the official authorities. Oh wait, they're confused too.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    I do not have enough fingers to count the number of times CNN has been wrong.
l33tbro 13y ago
This attitude still annoys me. Yes, there were a couple of users that may have jumped to conclusions - but so what. Overall, the Boston Bombing coverage through Reddit was an amazing, breakthrough experience in the realm of how we can experience a media event. It represented the first time people could experience the combination of a) freely available police radio signal b) satellite imagery c) a mass man-hunt - which resulted in an incredible, absolutely breakthtaking and adreniline inducing media experience. The mainstream media? Hours upon hours behind what we were experiencing. Now - that is now being repeated - to a lesser degree - with flight 370. It's a shame that a few trolls have obscured this event for what it was. So please don't tarnish all Reddit users with the title of "Reddit". Isn't that just the same as talking about "all those Muslims", or, conversely, the jihadist talking about "America"?
- bhrgunatha 13y ago
  While I agree with you, I think it's important to note that part of the difference ni the experience is that anyone can post whatever they like in a forum thread, leading to trolling and worse. Not everyone has the ability to broadcast news from a news outlet, and certainly the more reputable ones, which are hours behind, are behind because they also have habits from more traditional journalism, things like fact checking and avoiding pure speculation. > Yes, there were a couple of users that may have jumped to conclusions - but so what You cannot seriously be blind to the implications or consequences can you?
  - svenkatesh 13y ago
    >You cannot seriously be blind to the implications or consequences can you? There seems to be a serious lack of empathy on the parts of many of the users on HN who are commenting. They're forgetting that Sunil was a person, and that he had family and friends. They're forgetting that baseless accusations actually hurt others.
  - l33tbro 13y ago
    Sure - while the sense of responsibility within the fourth estate has diluted with 24/7 news cycle - I agree that the buffer to reporting news (after fact-checking) remains important. I'm simply highlighting that the last 5 years has birthed exciting new means of experiencing mass events. Re: "so what" - well ... do I get upset a few about racist/homophobic Youtube commentors? No, because I know that by engaging in this platform (and the whole interent FTM) I am going to be exposed to a raft of idiots/trolls who carelessly ruin lives. That is simply the rules of engagement on the internet, so I thicken my hide and continue on. So I'm not blind to the consequences, as you put it - I just accept that I cannot control the actions of a speculative, idiot minority that trolled that missing kid.
samstave 13y ago
Wold you prefer the moronic bland sound-bytes of official propaganda arms such as fox and cnn, or a bunch of people actively working to come to a far faster, more informed position, even if the immediate info and positions are wholly wrong.
- svenkatesh 13y ago
  I would prefer that innocent people's names are not dragged through the mud and that the parents of innocent college students not be harassed over social media. I don't see how accusing Sunil was "informed." It was a baseless accusation that was made because he was brown and lived in the area.
notatoad 13y ago
I'm not saying read all of reddit. In any current events thread, there's usually one heavily-upvoted comment containing a comprehensive timeline of events where somebody with some background knowledge has done the hard work of filtering through all the noise in the reddit comments / twitter / etc and picked out only the actual news. Just read that comment.

mcintyre1994 13y ago

In fairness wasn't that a subreddit? It probably got posted and on the front page a few times, but it's very different to the live news in big front page news threads referenced. An example is the showdown there, the top live news comment was the best I saw for the events anywhere.

svenkatesh 13y ago
It moved to a subreddit when the thread in /news or /worldnews got too big (I don't remember specifics). In any case, the effects of the witchhunt weren't limited to that subreddit anyway... the users started harassing Sunil's parents on Facebook and began calling LEO with their harebrained theory. There's a reason that vigilante justice isn't legal in most of the civilized world.

toomuchtodo 13y ago

One mistake ruins the entire foundation of crowdsourced information! Never trust forums for info! /S

svenkatesh 13y ago
You're right, that was the only instance in which Reddit was wrong. Ever. /s
- Gigablah 13y ago
  All journalistic entities have been wrong multiple times before, so we should only trust the official authorities. Oh wait, they're confused too.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  I do not have enough fingers to count the number of times CNN has been wrong.

l33tbro 13y ago

This attitude still annoys me. Yes, there were a couple of users that may have jumped to conclusions - but so what. Overall, the Boston Bombing coverage through Reddit was an amazing, breakthrough experience in the realm of how we can experience a media event. It represented the first time people could experience the combination of a) freely available police radio signal b) satellite imagery c) a mass man-hunt - which resulted in an incredible, absolutely breakthtaking and adreniline inducing media experience. The mainstream media? Hours upon hours behind what we were experiencing. Now - that is now being repeated - to a lesser degree - with flight 370. It's a shame that a few trolls have obscured this event for what it was. So please don't tarnish all Reddit users with the title of "Reddit". Isn't that just the same as talking about "all those Muslims", or, conversely, the jihadist talking about "America"?

bhrgunatha 13y ago
While I agree with you, I think it's important to note that part of the difference ni the experience is that anyone can post whatever they like in a forum thread, leading to trolling and worse. Not everyone has the ability to broadcast news from a news outlet, and certainly the more reputable ones, which are hours behind, are behind because they also have habits from more traditional journalism, things like fact checking and avoiding pure speculation. > Yes, there were a couple of users that may have jumped to conclusions - but so what You cannot seriously be blind to the implications or consequences can you?
- svenkatesh 13y ago
  >You cannot seriously be blind to the implications or consequences can you? There seems to be a serious lack of empathy on the parts of many of the users on HN who are commenting. They're forgetting that Sunil was a person, and that he had family and friends. They're forgetting that baseless accusations actually hurt others.
- l33tbro 13y ago
  Sure - while the sense of responsibility within the fourth estate has diluted with 24/7 news cycle - I agree that the buffer to reporting news (after fact-checking) remains important. I'm simply highlighting that the last 5 years has birthed exciting new means of experiencing mass events. Re: "so what" - well ... do I get upset a few about racist/homophobic Youtube commentors? No, because I know that by engaging in this platform (and the whole interent FTM) I am going to be exposed to a raft of idiots/trolls who carelessly ruin lives. That is simply the rules of engagement on the internet, so I thicken my hide and continue on. So I'm not blind to the consequences, as you put it - I just accept that I cannot control the actions of a speculative, idiot minority that trolled that missing kid.

samstave 13y ago

Wold you prefer the moronic bland sound-bytes of official propaganda arms such as fox and cnn, or a bunch of people actively working to come to a far faster, more informed position, even if the immediate info and positions are wholly wrong.

svenkatesh 13y ago
I would prefer that innocent people's names are not dragged through the mud and that the parents of innocent college students not be harassed over social media. I don't see how accusing Sunil was "informed." It was a baseless accusation that was made because he was brown and lived in the area.

notatoad 13y ago

I'm not saying read all of reddit. In any current events thread, there's usually one heavily-upvoted comment containing a comprehensive timeline of events where somebody with some background knowledge has done the hard work of filtering through all the noise in the reddit comments / twitter / etc and picked out only the actual news. Just read that comment.