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Comment by michaelkscott | Hacker News Reader

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

No, the title should say, "Brown University student, missing since 15th of March, found dead."

That would not make story interesting/relevant enough to be the tech news.

Correct, but I will not encourage ambiguous and sensational titles for the sake of 'being interesting/relevant enough to be tech news'.

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.

>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.

If one aggressive subreddit takes irresponsible action, is that fair to say "Reddit did 'X'".

Or is it more accurate to say "the subreddit /r/findthebostonbombers of the Reddit web site did 'X'"?

I would argue for the latter. Granted, the mainstream media is unlikely to make the distinction or care, but it's an important difference.

The group as a whole has to be aware of it to tolerate it as a whole. This is not the case with a lot of Reddit users. Personally, I didn't even know this happened until these articles started popping up.

The same way we talk about the actions of a small percentage of the employees of a company as if they represent the entire company.

I do not think these are equivalent. A company is a hierarchical structure of individuals, with oversight and management relationships. Reddit is just a bunch of unaffiliated individuals talking to each other.

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.

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