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Reddit, Boston and the missing student

newstatesman.com

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Re: Reddit, Boston and the missing student

#21

Post by gazrogers »

wtvanhest wrote: post #15

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…

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

Re: Reddit, Boston and the missing student

#22

Post by danso »

sriramk wrote: post #17

I feel so sorry for the Tripathis. Apart from their son/brother being missing they just got put through hell for 24 hours. Sadly, Reddit can't offer up a collective apology. In light of what we know, this Reddit thread makes for such sad reading. http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1cn9ga/is_missing_st...

Reddit is a discussion board made up of individuals with widely varying viewpoints, motives, and ages...what would a collective apology look like? The closest thing to official Reddit action on this is when a moderator of r/findbostonbombers shut discussion down on Sunil 14 hours ago:

http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1cnafx/mo...

The mod was ridiculed when Sunil's name was reportedly mentioned on scanners hours later but he/she stood their ground.

Demanding reddit to collectively hang their head in shame would be like asking all of Russia to apologize on behalf of the alleged actions of these ethnic Chechens...it's a bit impractical and overestimates the cohesiveness of the group

Re: Reddit, Boston and the missing student

#24

Post by pc86 »

reustle wrote: post #6

I find it funny when people talk about reddit, 4chan, etc as a single group. "Reddit should really not do this". Really? It's like saying Brooklyn should really stop being so hipster. Not only is it a very small portion of the entire group, but they aren't about to stop doing what they're doing because of a few articles.

I agree that it's silly, but there really are too many hipsters in Brooklyn.

Re: Reddit, Boston and the missing student

#25

Post by mpyne »

kaze wrote: post #8

Sunil Tripathi (or his parents) would do well to take legal action against Reddit for facilitating this garbage, if the final legal reports support the assessment that Sunil was not involved.

I'm honestly surprised to see this opinion on HN, the defender of the free Internet.

Should the family also take legal action against the ISPs of the Reddit users involved, simply for "facilitating" this garbage?

Re: Reddit, Boston and the missing student

#26

Post by doktrin »

danso wrote: post #22
sriramk wrote: post #17

I feel so sorry for the Tripathis. Apart from their son/brother being missing they just got put through hell for 24 hours. Sadly, Reddit can't offer up a collective apology. In light of what we know, this Reddit thread makes for such sad reading. http://www.reddit.com/r/boston/comments/1cn9ga/is_missing_st...

Reddit is a discussion board made up of individuals with widely varying viewpoints, motives, and ages...what would a collective apology look like? The closest thing to official Reddit action on this is when a moderator of r/findbostonbombers shut discussion down on Sunil 14 hours ago: http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1cnafx/mo... The mod was ridiculed when Sunil's name was reportedly mentioned on sc…

Obviously Reddit can't offer a collective apology, the parent even said as much.

However, since there are obviously individuals who were willing to take credit on behalf of Reddit ("Reddit was right!", "Historic thread!"), it stands to reason that the inverse is also possible.

In the "duh-factor" statement of the day : groups are made up of people, and we shouldn't hide behind the amorphousness of a group to avoid taking responsibility for our actions. I'm sure the family would appreciate a few retractions, even if they didn't represent reddit/4chan/the internet as a whole.

Re: Reddit, Boston and the missing student

#27

Post by k-mcgrady »

wtvanhest wrote: post #15

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…

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.

Re: Reddit, Boston and the missing student

#28

Post by PavlovsCat »

wtvanhest wrote: post #15

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…

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.

Re: Reddit, Boston and the missing student

#29

Post by k-mcgrady »

mpyne wrote: post #25
kaze wrote: post #8

Sunil Tripathi (or his parents) would do well to take legal action against Reddit for facilitating this garbage, if the final legal reports support the assessment that Sunil was not involved.

I'm honestly surprised to see this opinion on HN, the defender of the free Internet. Should the family also take legal action against the ISPs of the Reddit users involved, simply for "facilitating" this garbage?

It's nothing to do with the free internet. Accusing someone of murder with absolutely no proof could be considered libel.

Edi: I wasn't accusing Reddit of libel. It's just a platform. The individuals who posted the comments would be the ones committing libel.

Re: Reddit, Boston and the missing student

#30

Post by steven2012 »

I think an interesting question is, what techniques could have improved the crowdsourcing attempts by reddit, 4chan, etc.

Obviously there's a huge amount of training that had the FBI zero-in on the terrorists. Was it different data they had access to, or was it simply the techniques that they used, and if so, can they be taught en masse?

To me, a large, motivated source of volunteer work like reddit or 4chan when looking for a needle in a haystack might be valuable in the future if something like this arises again.

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