"Barhoun's younger brother, who declined to be identified..."
Seriously? First of all, the kid is under 18, so you shouldn't be identifying him anyway without his parents' permission, but second, you just identified him.
This is intentional and common in deliberately shoddy journalism. They're violating every fiber of journalistic ethics without technically running afoul of it.
This is a classic example of why this type of information should just be forwarded to the authorities. Last thing we need is a mob mentality going after someone who may turn up to be innocent; it's happened before, and it can happen again.
They aren't really the mob - they are the actual pros who do this all the time. Presumably they aren't going to go and lynch someone because a random tipster emailed them a blurry photo.
Not to mention that official law enforcement has governance in place to at least try to make sure they don't go and lynch someone on a hunch. It might not be perfect, but it's better than the alternatives.
So, to be clear, the teen Salah Barhoun was the guy in the blue tracksuit who some 4chan'ers thought was the bomber. Also called out here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5562975
And this is why vigilante justice sucks. I'm just glad that some nutcase in real life didn't go off on him and he went to the police himself to clear his name before anything bad happened to him.
a) I can't speak for 4chan, but the Reddit thread has been full of counterarguments, doubts, discussions of likely innocence as well as guilt. Some of the most upvoted threads are all about Devil's Advocacy and finding evidence of innocence:
http://www.reddit.com/r/findbostonbombers/comments/1cjc30/de...
With that, similar threads, the rules imposed, it's following exactly the textbook approach to avoid groupthink.
b) Meanwhile, we have the case studies of Richard Jewell, Steven Hatfill, the Central Park Five, among others. Those were not cases of "vigilante justice." Those happened because no one bothered to check the math of the authorities.
The internet can be an unruly mob, sure, but it's simply inaccurate to claim the internet can ONLY be an unruly mob. Or why are any of us even here?
If the cautious stay silent for fear of the careless, then they cede a monopoly on speech to the careless. Aka, the remedy for bad discussion is more discussion, not less.
Some may argue against this. Some may use the internet to claim that internet discussions are harmful, but not without a certain degree of inconsistency between their words and their actions.
A natural response might be, "Yes, but I'm RIGHT, of course I should speak..." but the trouble is, no one knows whether they're right or not without submitting their ideas to the crowd for a full and proper vetting.
No one knows whether they're right or not after submitting their ideas to the crowd for a full and proper vetting, either. 'The crowd' is not a substitute for experimentation and investigation.
Noticing that someone looks suspicious in a picture and reporting it to the proper authorities (preferably a division thereof known for evenhandedness) so that they can look at all sides of the issue is reasonable. Someone has to handle crimes, and whoever that someone is will always be human. Noticing that someone looks suspicious and posting their picture on Facebook with an accusatory tagline is entirely indefensible.
It's bad enough when their are no proper authorities.
Even with those counterarguments and discussion, there is something to be said for the unfairness of publicly discussing whether or not this kid has anything to do with the case. For a long time now this event will be associated with his name.
Even if 99 comments out of 100 on Reddit or whatever other forum are doubtful, there is still the fact that his name has been publicized incorrectly - which would not have happened in the absence of a public witch hunt.
Unruly mobs tend to be made up of perfectly normal people, who never intended to be an unruly mob in the first place. It is remarkable hoe a group of people can suddenly act as one coherent unit. Not just in thought, if you observe a mob form the air they make patterns like migrating birds to.
Not ironically, the NY Post is just as bad as the Daily Mail.
On the day of the bombing, they were reporting that the bomber had already been arrested. The day after the bombing, they had a picture on their cover of a backpack that was supposedly the bomb... except it wasn't. Today, they had a picture of two middle eastern looking people, who had nothing to do with the bombing. This is par the course for the NY Post.
My favorite though, is when I used to do political work, the NY Post would show up to large events, set up a quick photoshoot with paid actors, then leave, and whatever they staged a picture of would be the next day's front page.
In cases such as this, I can't help but wonder if the person in the picture has a strong legal case of libel and defamation against the publisher. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, and maybe it's just my personality but if a newspaper tried to ruin my life just to sell newspapers, I'd 'lawyer up' with the intent of owning that newspaper when it was all said and done.
This guy was drawn out by the folks at Reddit - r/findbostonbombers. They are only drawing a list of suspects based on visual evidence from the photographs at the event. They are also passing along these tips to the FBI etc. Just in case, these men (called as the Backpack Bros) were cleared by the subreddit way before this name had come out. You can view their analysis here - https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/lv?key=0AgtCl8YvqiBodEl0...
These reports of what went on are almost as confused as speculation about what happened in the bombing.
I watched this going on all day yesterday. Certainly, there were many counterarguments and so on, but frankly the Reddit thread was a confused mess, with the same stuff getting posted over and over again, no coherent plan on organizing files by resolution or time, and no schema for IDing people, leading to multiple subthreads like 'I think this guy looks super-fishy' 'Which guy there's 100 people in that photo, who do you mean?' 'In the middle, on the left, once you've seen him you can't un-see him.' I don't think the Reddit community or subreddit moderators were at fault, but their search were nowhere near as well organized as you suggest.
What happened in the case of the runner kids is that another forum, AR15.com (dedicated to gun enthusiasts, as you might guess) pretty much decided that these two guys were guilty (based largely on the early photo speculations showing backpacks looking large enough to hold a pressure cooker). then one of the members decided to post on the Facebook page of the teenager in the blue tracksuit, which was then noticed by a Reddit user who was also watching the AR15.com thread (not me).
The teen saw the post on his Facebook page, stated that he had nothing to do with it and immediately contacted law enforcement; At this point the subReddit moderator went through and cleaned up the old threads and so forth. IIRC the 'non-suspect' went to a court building or a police station (wherever the investigation HQ is) straight away, and later returned to post an update on his FB page. The ar15.com folks meanwhile ostracized the person who had posted the link on the FB page and convinced themselves that they're all targets now (that community is heavily invested in the idea that it should be Muslim terrorists, presumably because they're feeling sensitive over the gun control issue).
I don't mean this as a criticism of the Reddit folks, who were doing their best. I'm posting this more to observe that social media in general does not do that great of job at this kind of thing. EDIT: I think social media and crowds can do a great job of that, but it needs pretty strict.active moderation and a gameplan at the outset. That proceduralism slows down people who want to dive right in and help straight away, but it also helps to eliminate false positives.
Hey Reddit isn't going to sort everything for the FBI and give them names of suspects to arrest. That's the job of the FBI.
All we are saying is that Reddit, 4chan and others may help the FBI if they care to watch these threads. That might or might not be helpful but it can't hurt as long as the FBI isn't willingly looking away, which might then trigger the vigilante action.
It might be why it sucks, but if vigilante justice, or in this case looking at photos and pointing out who had backpacks resulted in the capture of the true bomber more quickly, than the unfortunate consequences for the people temporarily named by a subreddit who's existence would be hard to locate without media attention is just not significant enough to outweigh the possibility of them figuring it out before they got on a flight etc.
If we have a terrorist group claiming responsibility and showing new photos with the terrorists in another country in the next 24-48 hours, the FBI failed. It doesn't matter if we eventually drone strike them, they failed and should look in to crowd sourcing the photo investigation in the future.
The fact that highly irresponsible news agencies printed those photos is completely separate from reddit and 4Chan talking about it.
Ideally there should be an FBI sanctioned system which allows this type of work.
For those that point out the man the FBI accused in Atlanta, keep in mind, that was way, way, way more drawn out than a 24 hour period.
Now, I'll also admit, I could be wrong, maybe they don't find them, maybe they don't post photos of who they think it is and these guys aren't cleared by the FBI, maybe it turns out that they are harassed etc.
The internet is new, and I feel like we can figure out a way to do this the right way.
"It might be why it sucks, but if vigilante justice, or in this case looking at photos and pointing out who had backpacks resulted in the capture of the true bomber more quickly, than the unfortunate consequences for the people temporarily named by a subreddit who's existence would be hard to locate without media attention is just not significant enough to outweigh the possibility of them figuring it out before they got on a flight etc.
A terrorist will argue that sacrifice is worth it to achieve their goals, which they see as justice in their terms.
We have to be better than that, or there is literally no point bothering. We just do their work for them. People say Islamic terrorists hate American freedoms. So how come Americans give them up so easily citing the likes of Islamic terrorism? It just goes round and round, bomb, less freedom, bomb, less freedom, until you have less freedom than they have.
The logic you refer to is "the ends justify the means"... but I assure you that I considered both in my statement. There are definitely arguments to be made that say I am wrong.
The right way to do it would be for the FBI to have a secure crowdsourcing platform that volunteers can work on after major criminal or terrorist incidents. Volunteers should be required (as a condition of volunteering) not to discuss their results with other people.
Only the raw classification and identification data is valuable here. The feedback cycles created by public discourse and news media are terribly flawed and often very harmful. It would be much better to use an automated back end to process the data, seek further verification and then ultimately bring it to the attention of human investigators.
It does matter if the bomber is found and targeted by drone strikes. That is terrorism in itself and I see it as worse than being killed or injured by a random bombing. There is no recourse and nothing a victim or their family can do. The drone strike happens and no one who sympathises can do anything to help you.
"It is better that ten guilty persons escape than that one innocent suffer",
...as expressed by the English jurist William Blackstone in his seminal work, Commentaries on the Laws of England, published in the 1760s.
It is worth note that the actual numbers are not generally seen as important, so much as the idea that the State should not cause undue or mistaken harm "just in case". Historically, the details of the ratio change, but the message that government and the courts must err on the side of innocence is constant.
> Salah Barhoun was the guy [who] Redditors thought was the bomber
Citation needed. I saw no such declaration on reddit -- just that he seemed to be one of the dozens of somewhat interesting people worth looking at a little more closely.
It was the mass media that took this and turned it into "OMG REDDIT SAYS THEY FOUND THE BOMBER!"
Comments like this one [1] in this thread [2] didn't just appear out of nowhere. There was plenty of wild speculation (the worst of which has since been edited or deleted) in that thread in the hours following the event.
This widely circulated spreadsheet [3] contains a "suspect summary", not a list of "somewhat interesting people".
I've been closely watching this subreddit from the beginning, and have not seen anything of non-negligible prominence (including the comments you link to) accusing anyone of anything other than being worthy of a closer look.
The spreadsheet has 10+ people on it. You'd have to be willfully misinterpreting it to an absurd degree to conclude that reddit thought they all were simultaneously guilty.
>I've been closely watching this subreddit from the beginning, and have not seen anything of non-negligible prominence (including the comments you link to) accusing anyone of anything other than being worthy of a closer look.
Either you got there late or weren't paying attention. There are no shortage of people in this thread and the one I linked who witnessed that thread getting out of hand.
>The spreadsheet has 10+ people on it. You'd have to be willfully misinterpreting it to an absurd degree to conclude that reddit thought they all were simultaneously guilty.
I have no idea what kind of point you're trying to make here.
There's a lot of truth to 'untog's comment up above that no matter the nuance and diligence being practiced, Reddit is still an open and public forum and no amount of nuance is worth anything when stuff leaks out of Reddit.
> it was his interpretation from Reddit comments that Salah was one possible suspect
It's a huuuuuuge backpedal to go all the way from "reddit thought this guy was the bomber" to "one person on HN saw a reddit comment and it made him think that the guy was one possible suspect".
> no amount of nuance is worth anything when stuff leaks out of Reddit
Sure, but then the blame needs to be placed at the feet of the person who misrepresents the reddit post -- not on reddit itself.
Speaking of which, misrepresenting reddit is exactly what your comment at the top of this thread is doing. You should edit it.
Salah was wearing a bright tracksuit that stuck out, and I think he's got a pretty memorable face -- I would bet a good amount that when a day or two passes by, what people will remember would be that he was one of the suspects. The association in their minds has already been made. And, there's a non-zero chance at that point that someone will misread the post, or recall it inaccurately, there's a chance that someone might attack him in an attempt to catch him or something. Public, vigilante justice is bad, full stop.
Perhaps reddit needs a NSFW-like roadblock for special cases like this: Before you can enter the subreddit, you need to acknowledge that everyone is presumed innocent, that reposting things elsewhere can severely harm innocent people, that vigilante justice is bad, etc. Click each checkbox, hit submit, and only then do you get to start reading and participating.
You're absolutely right about vigilante justice, but there's a big difference between that (i.e., playing judge, jury, and executioner) and public evidence-review assistance (i.e., playing forensic investigator).
Where's the "vigilante justice" you speak of? I see crowdsourced investigation and a newspaper that, more or less, made something up (that the feds seek the two men).
Also, this is why the New York Post sucks. I understand a bunch of internet teenagers with too much time on their hands spreading this story, but an actual newspaper with professional journalists? And on the front page too.
The New York Post is only useful for insulation for the homeless. Luckily, this is also its primary use.
What vigilante justice? There was a bunch of speculation on some websites the vast majority of the people don't read. The blame solely falls on unethical media organizations like the NY Post. They're the ones that decided to run with their "story".
Any idea what legal options this kid would have now? I mean is this not the worst kind of defamation?
I would think the stigma will take years to shake.
Classic News Corp. material - lazy and sensationalist. Unless the people who are targeted start filing libel suits and claiming damages in these cases, the organizations that profit from this jump-to-conclusions journalism crap will keep just on doing it.
Listen to NPR, read the New York Times, AP Wire. Stay the hell away from TV and all News Corp. publications.
There is a lot of hate here for the "vigilantes" who singled him out. In no way do I approve of the subreddit devoted to finding these people, but I think many of the comments here blow what happened out of proportion.
No one arrested him, fired him, threatened him, or tried to hurt him. Even to a kid, I can't imagine this impacting your life too much. If he were traumatized, he'd not be allowing everyone to use his name.
Again, I don't approve of this kind of speculation, but they always labeled their work as speculation and discouraged people from acting on it. I think we might just be over-reacting.
> "No one arrested him, fired him, threatened him, or tried to hurt him."
Citation needed... Far tamer acts have elicited all of the above when put in front of the Internet Hate Machine (which now includes Reddit).
Remember Adria Richards? Yeah, she didn't kill anyone and she still got direct threats of being raped and killed.
The individual here hasn't been arrested or fired, but you can bet your ass he has been threatened and intimidated in ways neither of us can even imagine. The level of cruelty internet strangers have repeatedly demonstrated to others can best be described as "unquantifiably high".
> "Again, I don't approve of this kind of speculation, but they always labeled their work as speculation and discouraged people from acting on it."
This is a cop-out, and has about as much legitimacy as those "no copyright infringement intended" descriptions under pirated YouTube videos.
STOP doing this!!!. This is irresponsible at many levels. A really huge mistake
Everybody knows currently that this guy is not suspitious at all and police will be glued to him 25 hours a day in the next weeks, but... what if the true bombers had seeing the photos of the guy with the big red circle on 4chan before his declaration?
What a golden opportunity for the ba[dg] guys could be... They only need to reach this boy, with name graciously provided by the stupid press, before the police gets him. Two minutes in facebook and they have the direction. Later, "the main suspect commits suicide" at home, "solved" crime and jail avoided... what's the next target?
Please STOP putting people inside a circle... just now! Don't publish the real name of a "suspect" with big uppercase letters! This should be strictly forbiden. Just give a copy of the photos to the police, is as simple as that.
Observe that 4chan users did not set up a whole board devoted to the topic and a spreadsheet of suspects. Nor, for that matter, do alleged journalists frequently use 4chan as a primary source.
Where's the "mob justice" part? Seems more like crowdsourced investigation. The crowd came up with a theory, that theory was sent to the authorities, and the suspect went to the police preemptively.
> Where's the "mob justice" part? Seems more like crowdsourced investigation.
In this case, same thing.
> The crowd came up with a theory, that theory was sent to the authorities, and the suspect went to the police preemptively.
And you really have no idea why this process might have caused Salah Barhoun to experience genuine fear for his safety and the safety of his family? Not to mention all the anxiety any normal, thinking person experiences when having to deal unexpectedly with both the national media and the police?
When people use the term "mob justice" they are usually referring to something less benign than the public collaborating online to provide the FBI with the tips they're asked the public for.
>And you really have no idea why this process might have caused Salah Barhoun to experience genuine fear for his safety and the safety of his family?
Anyone finding themselves in the spotlight unexpectedly is going to be stressed. He's doing the right thing by going to the authorities. His name will then likely be quickly cleared.
> When people use the term "mob justice" they are usually referring to something less benign than the public collaborating online to provide the FBI with the tips they're asked the public for.
We're using the term advisedly. It's the interpretation of events that there seems to be some disagreement about.
> Anyone finding themselves in the spotlight unexpectedly is going to be stressed. He's doing the right thing by going to the authorities. His name will then likely be quickly cleared.
You completely ignored the question, and it's an important one. Do you really, sincerely not understand how being fingered as a suspect in a very public way, in America, in 2013, in a terrorist bombing case, will cause a dark-skinned guy with a foreign name to experience well-founded and reasonable fear for his safety and the safety of his family?
I don't know how much further I can unpack this for you. "The subreddit" (whatever the hell that means) engaged in a small - perhaps accidental, in the way a lot of what a mob does is accidental - act of terror in a time of terror. Good job with that. It would be nice if they actually acknowledged it, but I expect they'll soon just move on to putting words over pictures of cats.
if i may channel someone i read on HN yesterday: "at what point does the 'crowd' become the 'mob'?" definitively, it seems like a "mob" of people seeking "justice".
it doesn't matter what you call it or what the intent was; you cannot argue that this kid is clearly shaken up and it's affected his family deeply.
I'm not sure if it's useful to use loaded language (that's most often used to describe people anonymously making death threats) when describing people collaborating via the Internet to investigate something. "Mob" isn't usually used to describe a well-behaved crowd.
you're right; point taken. the language can be harmful. but to argue about the language ignores the fact that whatever we call it, it had unintended negative consequences that need to be addressed if we plan on rehashing this tactic.
What if every one on HN, 4Chan etc, decided the bomber was you? Off you go, down to the police station, clear your name, have your prints taken, get a record, maybe if in the UK have your DNA put on record...
Not really mob justice - more like "mob junior Secret Service wannabe activities". The hive mind suggested something, the guy went to the cops and said "uh, uh, not me".
The system worked, at the cost of some inconvenience. Sometimes the police release the photo of a "person of interest" themselves, and that person does much the same thing.
When I read on the fbi.gov that US.A. Carmen Ortiz is in charge, I am not surprised that the daily routine of these 2 innocent people was already drastically damaged for the upcoming years.
I was actually wondering yesterday if this would happen. You'd have to be living under a rock for those pictures not to get back to you. And when they did why wouldn't you immediately come forward and say "it wasn't me."
[Sorry for being unclear. I knew he came forward. I was saying that that happening was predictable.]
It's not clear to me why you left this comment. jere said he wondered if a particular thing would happen, and then it did. You assert that second part as if in contradiction?
That's not how I read his comment -- I think you're reading accusation into the phrase "why wouldn't you" that isn't really there.
I realise that without context it could be ambiguous, but since even the headline indicates that the guy has already come forward, I doubt jere was unaware of that.
'jere was probably protesting why Salah didn't come out to say it wasn't him /immediately/, 'gee_totes responded by explaining he in fact did go to the police pretty much right away (i.e., yesterday, as soon as he became aware of the NYPost, etc.)
I'm a little surprised the authorities aren't asking everyone who was there to come forward to be interviewed about anything they may have seen. I just assumed that was SOP, but I guess I was wrong.
EDIT- they just did so in the press conference, at least everyone who was in a particular location.
In the Netherlands you could sue anyone publishing your face without your permission. There are exemptions for media in some cases, but suspects like here still have to get at least a black bar so that they're not easily recognizable. Doesn't America have similar laws?
Twitter and FB are amazing tools for spreading ideas (Arab Spring, Occupy Wall Street, Rebecca Black's "Friday", etc.) but they have also resulted in a shameful lack of fact-checking and an inexcusable free-fall in journalistic reporting standards that seems to have no end in sight.
What will it take to bring reporting standards back up to anywhere near their pre-social media levels?
For example, why can't the FCC start handing out massive fines ($x million) to news agencies that report false or inaccurate information? Of course that's not scalable but hopefully it could act as a deterrent and make people think twice before they post something. If the FCC can fine CBS $550,000 for allowing Janet Jackson's nipple to be exposed on national TV, you'd think they could do the same when major news companies' rushed reporting ends up ruining people's lives.
People's lives are being destroyed time and again by well-intentioned but misguided individuals and companies disseminating false information. Is there really nothing that can be done?
I'd take citizen journalists playing fast and loose with the rules of journalistic integrity over the mainstream news media which sold their soul long ago.
Nope, nothing. Well, you can win sometimes, but it has to be National Enquirer-level blatant. "New York Times Co. v. Sullivan" is the basis for modern defamation cases and it is heavily weighted to the press.
The second part is that the FCC does not have "truth" in its charter, but it does have decency legislation. Although a recent ABC case might make it impossible for the FCC to repeat the CBS Superbowl fine.
This is exactly the kind of scenario I said would happen in previous HN comment in another submission (as did many others). Reddit and 4Chan speculate and distribute images of innocent people, the media would eventually pick them up and people would be false-fully accused of being the bomber. It's the Ryan Lanza situation all over again. If you have suspicions, privately send your concerns and imagery to the authorities and let them handle things, don't post them onto Tumblr or Reddit without any proof, you could be ruining the lives of innocent people.
Put yourself in this situation. Your picture is being plastered all over the news and Facebook, you are being called a suspect in a brutal bombing case, your family see your image and immediately assume the worse, your employer sees the photo and you lose your job and you weren't even involved. The media doing what they seem to do best in this day and age: report now, fact check later.
So, no major news network or newspaper did itself any favors. NBC, Fox, CNN, MSNBC, NYT, Post, etc. all printed or aired bogus stories and the American public is confused and ill informed. CNN earned a spot on the Daily Show.
I don't know the answer other than some network could make a decent business out of only airing confirmed facts and actually giving us a view of the scene without the pundits. Actually interview people there and skip the "inside sources".
Who am I kidding, its all about what KK feels about the event.
This is so important. Online research can do a lot of good, but it is so easy to get carried away. I'm impressed by what reddit and 4chan and all the others found, but taking action is the job of cops.
"Barhoun's younger brother, who declined to be identified..."
Seriously? First of all, the kid is under 18, so you shouldn't be identifying him anyway without his parents' permission, but second, you just identified him.