3:45 pm
Apr 18, 2013

Uncategorized

Does Reddit Help or Harm in a Crisis?

    • For all of the so called “vigilantes” on Reddit, I encounter users that genuinely want to help complete strangers in a time of need. I don’t actually think Redditors are going out of their way to find a culprit, but it’s simply a great platform for intelligent discourse on the subject. Madrigal is too critical in this case, and overall I think Reddit is a beneficial source of information during a crisis.

    • The point should be how to constructively harness the huge resource that willing Redditors offer., not discourage people from assisting.

    • Reddit is not causing harm: Wired, however, did.

      They did so by accusing Reddit of being on a witchhunt when it was not. There was no vigilantism, no hunt for the perpetrators, just collaboration and speculation which was meant to be passed ONLY on to the FBI.

      Wired and other media organizations did damage by publicizing the photographs of potentially innocent people to a HUGE audience (the readership of the people on Reddit was small and specifically asked not to share the images with anyone but law enforcement). Moreover, Wired misconstrued the goal of the r/findbostonbombers: they were trying to find any examples of suspicious behavior or nylon bags, etc., NOT locate personal information or go on a witchhunt. Wired displayed an immense lack of responsibility and a shameful dearth of journalistic integrity.

      It is disappointing that WSJ is following a similar track as Wired, but since the damage of publicizing the photos is already done, I do not hold them culpable.

    • Posting someones pic accusing them of being a suspect does not help. If they find something it should be sent to authorities where that accused(with no evidence) has no chance of a backlash to them (either physical or even on the internet)

    • r/Findbostonbomber is not Reddit. Reddit has NOT responded, users of reddit have. r/findbostonbomber is a sub reddit. What is this subreddit? This is nothing more than one single place for people to compile, analyze, and discuss images, links, and thoughts about the Boston Bombing. There are many other places that such discussion is going on, including the original reddit discussion thread, 4chan, IRC (#bostonspeculation on irc.freenode.net), and many other places. I am in the community of these subredditors. We have never claimed anyone guilty. The two men that new york post put on the front page were discredited as suspects in the subreddit well before the paper came out. It is the responsibility of the media to use creditable sources, reddit is not and has never claimed to be a creditable source. To many news outlets have nothing to report on so they use images from a discussion board and say they were released by the FBI. That is irresponsible journalism, and the post should be ashamed of itself. To add to that, since there is no new news on the boston bombing, the story of our discussion bord has some how became news.

    • you are a ‘person of interest’ until you prove otherwise……….

    • Considering what a crappy job that the media is doing covering events like Sandy Hook for instance, and what little info. we get from law enforcement, people have no choice but to seek answers themselves, and God Bless the internet for making it possible.

    • Last time I checked, roughly 5,000 users on reddit have joined the specific subsection of reddit for finding the Boston bombers. The most popular subsections of reddit, like r/humor, have millions of users subscribed.

      Can no one release an article about the reddit investigations without doing basic research into the percentage of reddit users actually involved?

      This is pathetic.

    • Help. They do a considerably better job than CNN, never mind the madhouse that is FOX, in discussing the facts and not opinions and speculation.

    • Reddit is based on intent as so many of our major groups we so easily identify with. At its core, the NRA is principled. What I find puzzling is the educated condemnation of Reddit’s intent by our socially elite Journalists. Reddit is by no means an all encompassing source of knowledge enlightening us all to the world we live in. It is a place you peruse your empathetic heart and explore thoughts you have yet to find an outlet to nurture. When it counts, the media elite or tabloid has gone the route of sensationalism at its most detrimental levels. Did the people of Sandy-hook really hope for a barrage of commentary by each and every major news conglomerate front man/women ad nauseam for weeks on end? It makes me sick to think these expert media critics do not hold themselves to their own lofty journalistic integrity. I find it puzzling still why there was not a national ad campaign as too “ WHAT IS THE EXIT STRATEGY? “ when it truly mattered before the buildup too. Media today seems more focused on what can sell the most ad space the quickest than actually informing the public. Why? Why has a field report to show front-line weather affects and not an articulated message detailing evacuation routes supporting local government initiatives and if there are none “ ASK WHY? “ Instead they fill time and literary real estate with fluff, mountains of it. And it is left to the average citizen to filter through, on their own, content that is valid, factual, objective, concerted, and informed. I cannot get over and have lost count of the number of editorials you can catch on the twenty-four news network stations around dinner time anymore. Give me something legible, straight-forward, and just. Not the rants regurgitating political machines that liken themselves back to Boss Tweed antics. Reddit is pure and honest, not calibrated and accurate. The people who are supposed to inform us need to understand why John Stewart has a voice and not accept that he is the voice of reason. Really? Outlets like Stewart and Reddit have come as far as “THE” morality guide in our journey to understand current events. They are fodder, not the oracle of substance.

    • seems to me reddit user’s identified and documented these two individuals the FBI is releasing now, quite a bit of time before the FBI did themselves.

      While obviously not an all encompassing crime fighting tool, I don’t think the information brought up and discussed on reddit should be dismissed by any investigation department before taking the time to validate or unvalidate video/still footage as evidence.

      In fact, before the FBI released the pictures of these two suspects,
      I saw one news publication going so far as to say that these two individuals, who were also brought up on reddit, could be undercover officers and that nobody should really listen to reddit or paticular attention to these individuals brought up by reddit users.

      Even if it was an undercover officer photographed, you should still stack the evidence to see if he could have been a part of it.

      I think the major benefit to having reddit users do such a impromptu investigation is that you can compare it to the real investigation. The more evidence and the more possible angles or theories you have for an investigation, the more likely it is the department will land close to the truth, or even on it.

    • New York post had two innocent kids on the cover this morning identified as persons of interest. Wsj doesn’t seem too concerned with its fellow newscorp property putting out unsourced crap

    • WSJ displays their lack of understanding of Reddit and the internet in general.

      They might as well be saying: “Keep your head in the sand, while us adults do the work.” “We’ll let you know the truth when we find it. Until then, cower in fear, and await instructions from the authorities.”

      Meanwhile as “Rondell” put it in a comment on the article, “New York post had two innocent kids on the cover this morning identified as persons of interest. WSJ doesn’t seem too concerned with its fellow newscorp property putting out unsourced crap”

      Bottom line: WSJ and most other media outlets are dinosaurs trying to survive in the new internet ecosystem.

      They are threatened when the public uses the internet to do its own polite and well-reasoned factfinding as reddit has done, beating not only the mainstream media but even the FBI to some of the details that were released.

      Will society be better off by chastising these redditors, these concerned citizens displaying their compassion and humanity, for their efforts at sorting out the truth for themselves?

      Apparently the Wall Street Journal thinks so.

    • You’re going to find hate-mongerers and pitchfork-bearers who don’t care about the cold, hards facts anywhere, both in real life and on the internet. Those kind of people are actively vilified by Redditors and such posts get downvoted until they’re hidden or removed. Reddit is a valuable resource because there are a lot of people on there who’re willing to help others out in any way they can. I think the subreddit is pretty informative (I prefer looking at information compiled there rather than inaccurate and generally sensationalist news sites), and the mods are actively deleting any posts that may reveal personal information.

      As far as I’m concerned, the main “people” at fault here here are news sites who choose to browse Reddit and utilise potentially inaccurate information they’ve snatched from there so that they can regurgitate it into slap-dash articles in order to garner views and revenue. Perhaps they should stop being so lazy and do their OWN research, verify the accuracy before they publish anything and then refrain from admonishing Reddit. It’s hypocrisy down to the core, but what else is new?

      And no, I am not a member of Reddit, I’ve actively lurked there since late 2012 but I don’t have an account. I just think it’s pretty unfair that people are pointing fingers at a minority of people who do not represent the whole subreddit, but are apparently treating them as if they do.

    • More like another sign post in history that the WSJ is even more irrelevant.

    • Thanks to reddit we no longer need to rely on special interest media, such as WSJ

    • Vigilante-ism? What you crazy? Reddit is a bunch of nerds running pattern-recogniton algorithms, hypothesis, theories, etc. It is a private crowd-sourcing nerdy brain.

      Vigilante-ism? You should be ashamed – and get a dictionary – WSJ!

    • Well my own personal experience was that I was pretty sure one of the first high definition images of suspect two came from a dude who found it on a friend’s Facebook page and posted it in that thread. It was all over the news like twenty minutes later.

    • Hopefully Reddit will be sued by those they slandered. I share the same hope for the NY Post.

    • Reddit and other sites like it and other sites like it follow the basics of Game Theory and Social Networks: all facts are known by the whole crowd when a critical mass are involved and connected. The facts are that the identities of suspects 1 & 2 were realized when the authorities asked the public to identify them from pictures sourced from publicly-supplied photos and video from individual cameras and security footage. Ultimately, the hiding place of suspect 2 was supplied by a conscientious citizen doing his civic duty of being aware and reporting something strange. See the Arab Spring and its roots on Twitter and Facebook. These new tools are in their infancy and we as a society don’t yet use them very efficiently or naturally. But we will learn. Ask the Mitt Romney Presidential campaign whether they wish they would have been better skilled in using these new tools? Others will catch up as well….Even the venerable WSJ is now reliant on its comments’ community and bloggers to remain relevant, as shown by this exercise…

    • Reddit is fine. We’ll all never know how to properly use technology if we prevent ourselves from figuring it out. The last thing we need is another person telling us we aren’t responsible for our actions, and that we need laws restricting a source of freedom from us. “Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power.” — People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both. We may one day find that the great test of our species was not whether we will destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons, but if we will blindfold ourselves permanently by making illegal the democratization of information.

    • While I think that crowdsourcing the investigation on a professional level (sending videos, photos, etc. from eyewitnesses to the FBi or other investigators) is one of the most valuable contributions that technology and social media have made to the investigation, I think that crowdsourcing amateur investigations via sites like Reddit must be taken with a grain of salt. They generally get it wrong the first try, as evidenced by the innocent “suspects” first identified in both the Boston bombings and the Newtown shoootings, but those leads still go viral within seconds, invading the privacy of those wrongly accused. That exposure has a lasting impact, even if the information is later rescinded.

      As for media professional investigators expecting Reddit to be different, I think that they have a right to that opinion, particularly when it comes to an investigation of a potential nation security issue like the Boston bombing. Misinformation can spread just as quickly as the truth, and in today’s social world many citizens will turn to social media long before they turn on the news. Reddit and other sites need to recognize that they are looked at by ordinary citizens for this information and should create a code of ethics of how to handle posting during these situations.

Add a Comment

We welcome thoughtful comments from readers. Please comply with our guidelines. Our blogs do not require the use of your real name.

About Digits

  • Digits delivers breaking news and insights about the technology landscape, including Q&As with newsmakers, product news and strategic moves. Send news items, comments and questions to digits@wsj.com.

    • Digits on Facebook
Partner Center
An Advertising Feature
https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/04/18/does-reddit-help-or-harm-in-a-crisis/tab/comments/
blogs.wsj.com
crawl=CC-MAIN-2014-10
126111
application/http; msgtype=response
sha1:NGVXJUFMIXI5BJMHPP6HZ46OGPCDVLGY
<urn:uuid:07d56409-c08f-49f7-b22b-1deefade8b80>
2014-03-09T08:02:54Z
23.59.189.130
sha1:7KEOJPXA72FLVVWYGJDCU2KRPWJPPSMV
<urn:uuid:274b9580-da23-44e2-bd47-23358f9bbd38>
https://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2013/04/18/does-reddit-help-or-harm-in-a-crisis/tab/comments/
response
<urn:uuid:27913d1d-1ca4-4cae-a8a2-08489b15c6af>
robots: classic
hostname: ip-10-183-142-35.ec2.internal
software: Nutch 1.6 (CC)/CC WarcExport 1.0
isPartOf: CC-MAIN-2014-10
operator: CommonCrawl Admin
description: Wide crawl of the web with URLs provided by Blekko for March 2014
publisher: CommonCrawl
format: WARC File Format 1.0
conformsTo: http://bibnum.bnf.fr/WARC/WARC_ISO_28500_version1_latestdraft.pdf