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Comment by radge | Hacker News Reader

I hope this is a retaliation for the abhorrent behaviour of reddit users in blind smearing of innocent individuals in an attempt to prove the worth of social media/the internet/their "community". Information is dangerous when it is placed in the hands of these clowns and reddit needs to address their problems quickly before they ruin more lives.

http://www.newstatesman.com/world-affairs/2013/04/reddit-bos...

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> I hope this is a retaliation for the abhorrent behaviour of reddit users

You don't like vigilantes, but you hope vigilantes are punishing reddit users?

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

"Who watches the watchmen" would have been simpler and spared me a google search.

But I wouldn't have learned a cool new latin proverb.

Although it should be noted that the Latin itself is a translation, since this quote is attributed to Socrates and would have originally been in Greek.

According to Wikipedia it's (incorrectly) attributed to the Socrates character in Plato's Republic. Although a related idea is discussed in that book, the saying itself is attributed to Roman poet Juvenal, which was discussing marital affairs.

Also, I wouldn't have gotten that feeling of smug superiority for having read Terry Pratchett.

But then how would we know that facorreia is smarter than we are?

awesome fodder for a reddit comment chain, let's continue it there

Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum sonatur.

Being denied cat pictures and trite memes is a reward, not a punishment.

Actually posts containing speculations about Sunil (missing student) were instantaneously deleted (as groundless and potentially harmful) , at least before name appeared on police scanner, at least on r/findbostonbombers. Info was spread somewhere else, because new people constantly were creating ones.

before name appeared on police scanner

Is there a recording of this? Because it sounds a lot like it never happened.

It didn't the student's name was mentioned by a friend of his on Twitter who after looking at the photos released by police said that they thought there was a resemblance between the suspect in the white hat and her friend who had been missing for a month after dropping out of school and becoming depressed. There were several articles about the individual already on the web predating the bombing because the FBI had been contacted by the guy's family to help find him. The name mentioned on Police scanners was a different person also incorrect.

No, this happened. A purported classmate of Sunil's had tweeted about the resemblance to Suspect #2 about 14 hours ago:

> @christiiinaaaxo @jaredleesmith @thejman218 Looks just like a kid from my area that went missing exactly a month and has yet to be found.

> I mean maybe it's a total coincidence but I'm more than a little freaked out by the resemblance. #Boston pic.twitter.com/Qsd6rj5v5l

At some point, the Internet ran with her speculation:

> It makes me sad that people are going to the Tripathi family Facebook page and writing nasty things. That was never my intention

And at around 4-5 am, the Boston police scanners said they were looking for Sunil. I remember this because I fell asleep at 5am thinking that this bizarre story involved Sunil and then woke up at 8 learning that two completely different suspects had been identified. From the twitterer:

> So if what I'm hearing is correct, at 3 AM when the police scanners said they had their suspect and it was Sunil, I was wrong.

The tweeter's account is now protected but she hasn't deleted her tweets. I think everyone, including her, has learned a little about making well-intentioned speculation on the Internet. But apparently, even the Boston police had been fooled (at least someone in the BPD was, which is why police scanners should not be taken as gospel)

the Boston police scanners said they were looking for Sunil

Did you hear this yourself, or did you read it? That's really what I'm asking. I know many people were listening, but it's hard to tell what people heard first-hand and what people simply re-tweeted.

For my own peace of mind I'm trying to distinguish between two possibilities: a) that the names were not heard on the scanner at all and whole story was either a mirage or an intentional hoax, b) that someone's erroneous tip to the police was mistaken for its own confirmation.

This is an excellent point. No I did not hear it myself and would not have been able to tell what was a first-hand account of hearing it from merely retweets/reposts of that information. And whoever originally heard it may have heard chatter that said the names, but not in the context of being actual suspects.

Actually Sunil wasn't the main person who had been accused on Reddit

Can you show me some examples of abhorrent behavior? In the few reddit threads I skimmed about the bombing everyone was surprisingly mature, especially when pointing out 'suspicious' people.

isn’t ‘Pointing out ‘suspiciuos’ people’ on a public forum rather immature by itself?

For the most part, they were pointing out suspicious pictures, in the wake of a nearby large-scale criminal event. Not suspicious people by name.

What were the pictures of?

Would the pictures, or the people in the pictures, be suspected of being bombers? Were the police looking for pictures or for people in pictures?

Not in my opinion. They were just people trying to catch the bombers. No one was jumping to conclusions from what I saw (maybe some did but they were downvoted further down than I scrolled), rather they were just pointing out scenes that looked suspicious to them so that the police could investigate further. While there have definitely been cases in the past where a line has been crossed, I don't believe that to have happened this time.

of some reddit users. FTFY. Let's not smear everybody in your blanket statement.

The voting majority of reddit users.

while I was quite shocked by the witch-hunt and amount of 'suspicious until proven innocent' I saw in that subreddit, in fairness to reddit as a whole that is one small subreddit among thousands.

Also, some of the highest upvoted threads and comments appear to be warning others of the potential negative consequences of their publicly pointing out everyone with a backpack or different coloured skin.

Some small subreddit goes off the rails every few months.

Reddit as a whole needs a better answer for that than just pointing out that it is just some small subreddit.

(I don't pretend to know what that answer is, and I guess it does have more to do with people choosing how to participate in online discussions than it does reddit, but reddit is well positioned to push that participation in a better direction)

Last time I checked, the find Boston bombers subreddit had ~5K subscribers. r/humor currently has ~3.6 million. Please check your facts before making any more claims...

Have any lives been ruined by Reddit? Do you have proof of this?

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