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Crowdsourcing Failed In Boston Bombing Aftermath

Posted by timothy on from the well-not-entirely dept.

Nerval's Lobster writes "With emotions high in the hours and days following the Boston Marathon bombing, hundreds of people took to Reddit's user-generated forums to pick over images from the crime scene. Could a crowd of sharp-eyed citizens uncover evidence of the perpetrators? No, but they could definitely focus attention on the wrong people. 'Though started with noble intentions, some of the activity on reddit fueled online witch hunts and dangerous speculation which spiraled into very negative consequences for innocent parties,' read an April 22 posting on Reddit's official blog. 'The reddit staff and the millions of people on reddit around the world deeply regret that this happened.'"

25 of 270 comments (clear)

  1. Some other relevant stories by daveschroeder · · Score: 5, Informative

    This has been a fascinating phenomenon, and it's only going to evolve more as time goes on.

    Crowdsourcing or witch hunt? Reddit, 4chan users try to ID Boston bomb suspects

    Boston bombing: How internet detectives got it very wrong

    'I didn't do anything!' High school track runner forced to deny involvement in Boston Marathon bombings after a picture of him and his coach is widely circulated

    Social media as breaking-news feed: Worse information, faster

    Worse information, faster -- this neatly sums it up, and I'm a huge proponent of social media and its benefits, including to government.

    And for the record, no, the FBI wasn't seeking to "censor" anyone, and the "next logical step" (as I have seen asserted elsewhere) won't be to "shut down" internet or social media resources during major public emergencies; however, law enforcement agencies absolutely can request, once they have identified suspects via investigative and legal processes, that people focus on those instead of playing CSI: Internet.

    Sadly, the echo chamber of the internet enables some people, in seemingly increasing numbers, to go a step further and choose to believe everything is automatically a "false flag" conspiracy with the stated perpetrators "framed"â¦..

    The "wisdom of crowds" can be a misnomer.

    1. Re:Some other relevant stories by minstrelmike · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wisdom of crowds is about the same as the wisdom of committees.In fact, America is a Representative Democracy precisely in order to (intended to at least) avoid mob justice--aka direct democracy.

    2. Re:Some other relevant stories by 0xdeadbeef · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Worse information, faster

      Actually, the live threads on reddit were pretty damn fast and accurate.

    3. Re:Some other relevant stories by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      To be fair, the New York Post failed pretty badly too, first fingering that Saudi guy and then printing the images of two unrelated high schoolers right on their front page.

      I'm not sure which one I'm insulting more when I'm comparing the New York Post to 4chan.

    4. Re:Some other relevant stories by oh_my_080980980 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Crowd Sourcing by another name is called Mob Mentality. More people doing "something" does not improve the quality given the quality or lack there of the input.

    5. Re:Some other relevant stories by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Funny

      If you want to find out the IQ of a crowd, take the dumbest person's IQ and divide by the number of feet.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    6. Re:Some other relevant stories by jeffmeden · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Wisdom of crowds is about the same as the wisdom of committees.In fact, America is a Representative Democracy precisely in order to (intended to at least) avoid mob justice--aka direct democracy.

      In other words... *this* is why we can't have nice things! I have nothing against reddit really, but it always felt too much like a groupthink factory for my taste (and that is saying something considering i still put up with slashdot). Anyway, more information is not the same thing as better information!

    7. Re:Some other relevant stories by NatasRevol · · Score: 4, Informative

      Don't forget, the Post also claimed 12 dead. For about 18 hours.

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    8. Re:Some other relevant stories by PlusFiveTroll · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This is a point that needs, um, pointed out more.

      The observational news on places like reddit was great. Pictures of the events unfolding. Areas where the gunfights occurred were mapped quickly. Blew the news agencies out of the water. There are more regular people seeing things happen then there are news reporters seeing things happen.

      The investigational information was pretty crap. Lots of names and pictures of people being tossed out that had nothing to do with it. That said, a lot of it is similar to how the police do investigations, the 'internet' just had less information. We didn't get to see things like CCTV footage and such.

      Other then telling people, don't take for granted what you read on the internet, not much can be done about the issue though. Some sites can censor information posted, but the rate information is posted will be faster than it can be redacted. Once a few people read it, they will spread that information too. That doesn't even take in to effect sites that will not censor any information. The fact is, with the camera filled world we live in these days, people are going to do their own investigation right or wrong.

    9. Re:Some other relevant stories by medv4380 · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I believe the Wisdom of the Crowd only works when the crowd is ignorant of what it's doing. The moment the crowd is aware of what it's doing it starts giving bad answers.

    10. Re:Some other relevant stories by rsmith-mac · · Score: 4, Funny

      Intelligence is additive. Stupidity is multiplicative.

    11. Re:Some other relevant stories by dintech · · Score: 4, Funny

      reddit...felt too much like a groupthink factory for my taste

      Careful now, this withchunt could still happen on Slashdot too but in several days and with hot grits.

    12. Re:Some other relevant stories by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "Crowd Sourcing" - "None of us, is as dumb as all of us"

    13. Re:Some other relevant stories by Sarten-X · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The investigational information was pretty crap. Lots of names and pictures of people being tossed out that had nothing to do with it. That said, a lot of it is similar to how the police do investigations, the 'internet' just had less information. We didn't get to see things like CCTV footage and such.

      The other big difference is that police investigations aren't broadcasting every phase of the investigation to the entire world. For an hour or two, they might suspect that student from a politically-inconvenient country, but the public (and the politicians of that politically-inconvenient country) will never know. On 4chan, every suspicion is public, ready to be picked up by the echo chamber and presented as fact to the whole world.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    14. Re:Some other relevant stories by DerekLyons · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I can summarize your comment very simply: "Crowdsourcing! Crowdsourcing! Rah! Rah! Rah! - but don't look behind the curtains. We got many things wrong, but ignore those. It's not our fault. Crowdsourcing! Crowdsourcing! Rah! Rah! Rah!"
       

      In other words, it's not crowdsourcing that failed - the entire point of crowdsourcing is that you get hundreds of answers, most of which are wrong, but a few of which will be correct

      Um, no. The idea behind crowdsourcing is to get many eyes and minds working on a problem in search of a correct solution - many hands make light work, and subject matter experts lurk behind the oddest of usernames. If you fail to find a correct answer, then you've failed. Period.

  2. Shocking by tgd · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Perhaps this is why a defined legal system is more valuable than the historically-standard mob rule.

  3. Early Crimefighting Crowdsourcing in Salem by xxxJonBoyxxx · · Score: 5, Funny

    >> crowdsourcing

    Why not - they wouldn't have found all those witches in 1692 without crowdsourcing.

    1. Re:Early Crimefighting Crowdsourcing in Salem by martyros · · Score: 4, Informative

      Why not - they wouldn't have found all those witches in 1692 without crowdsourcing.

      Actually, the worst of the Salem witch trials was that they weren't crowd-sourced, but were an epic failure of the actual legal system at the time. Every person killed was tried and sentenced by a panel of 7 professional judges with years of experience, most of whom carried on with their professional careers afterwards. Reading it is like a textbook example of why we have these basic rights, like "presumption of innocence", "trial by jury", "right to an attourney", &c -- and should be a warning to anyone who thinks that we need to "get tough on crime" by taking away protections like these.

      --

      TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.

    2. Re:Early Crimefighting Crowdsourcing in Salem by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Either try them or release them. Those are your two civilized options.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
  4. The Zero Accountability Rumor Mill by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As detailed in my last post on this topic, some responsible individual on Reddit named Thirtydegrees decided to give us a little background on what went down (I know it's long but it's worth the read for chronological context).

    But wait! We can do better than that! Let's go look at /r/FindBostonBombers to see exactly what happened! Well, you can't. Oddly enough, the founder of that subreddit decided that he should just set it to private (here's a Reddit friendly vulgar meme of my request). Guess what? The founder of findbostonbombers doesn't want to be identified! Bizarre that he/she would create a subreddit devoted to identifying people and then themselves think that it's completely acceptable for their identities to be protected. Should you have a right to know who is accusing you of what? Well, you find out that you have done something wrong ... time to own up to it, right? Right? No! Not in the futuristic amazing world of crowdsourcing!

    Also hilarious is that they are saying the bombers have been found. Wrong. Whatever they did, they are still innocent until proven guilty! I am quite upset with everyone dropping the "alleged" word and referring to them as "the bombers" instead of "the suspects." They will get their day in court, that's how this stuff works. That's what lead to all the bad stuff that happened in /r/findbostonbombers. They went straight from "we have images that our untrained eye finds suspicious" straight to "these are the guys who killed innocent people, help us identify them and harass their families."

    We live in an era of digital lynch mobs.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:The Zero Accountability Rumor Mill by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I am quite upset with everyone dropping the "alleged" word and referring to them as "the bombers" instead of "the suspects."

      This isn't just a legal exercise, it's an epistemological one. I keep seeing different stories about who was shot when (was it in a boat or when he was fleeing?) who was run over by whom (by a police cruiser, by his brother) who was returning fire or not, who was throwing bombs or not, when the throat injury was inflicted, who left the scene wearing a backpack or not, who stayed at the scene of an imminent bomb explosion, or not. Even the stories that are heavy on background are simultaneously flawed in analysis.

      The details have been changing every day and continue to change. Hopefully the stories will converge on the truth. Frankly, I'm not going to pay close attention anymore because it's basically a waste of my time. Hopefully some journalists will do that to sell a good story and I'll read the wrap-up in a few weeks.

      There may be a few people inside Boston PD who have a clear picture of the complete situation, but even that I doubt. Anybody else who claims to "know what happened" is either being fooled or is fooling themselves. It's a soup of dis- and mis-information out there right now, and we're not going to solve it on Slashdot either.

      In the meantime, to declare that crowdsourcing "got it wrong" is to insist that there's an objective measure of "correct" at this point to justify such an assertion and is premature.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  5. Witch Hunts by tompaulco · · Score: 5, Funny

    Witch Hunts? In Massachusetts? Surely, you jest.

    --
    If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
  6. Respecting peoples privacy by onyxruby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is something that are country tends to fail miserably at and unfortunately you can't blame it all on corporations. The media very much deserves a large part of the blame for this with an attitude that everyone's private business is public business. It's not just this issue, Gawker took their anti-gun crusade and published peoples personal addresses after they followed New York law and registered their guns.

    Example after example of the media blatantly disregarding people's privacy can be cited with entirely too much ease. As a society we should be ashamed of events like this and look to Europe for guidance on respecting other peoples privacy. Perhaps someday the right for privacy should be the next great civil rights crusade?

  7. Re:crowsourcing did NOT fail - here's why by abigsmurf · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Yeah, who cares if one teenager got put through hell and the parents of another missing teenager experienced even more heartbreak, eventually they identified the real people (after seeing them identified by actual responsible news reporters) and had no noticeable impact on the man hunt!

  8. Be right, not first lost to be first, forget right by Geoffrey.landis · · Score: 5, Informative

    Worse information, faster

    Reddit was a positive feedback loop. Good information may have been amplified-- but bad information was, too.

    Quoting from http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/04/19/17826915-missing-brown-university-students-family-dragged-into-virally-fueled-false-accusation-in-boston "Reddit became overnight 'one of the more ugly and disgusting places that had a lot of traffic ... There were very intense and ugly comments throughout the last 12 hours.'"

    Actually, the live threads on reddit were pretty damn fast and accurate.

    Fast... but not always accurate.

    From the Atlantic's analysis http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/04/it-wasnt-sunil-tripathi-the-anatomy-of-a-misinformation-disaster/275155/
    " The next step in this information flow is the trickiest one. Here's what I know. At 2:42am, Greg Hughes, who had been following the Tripathi speculation, tweeted, "This is the Internet's test of 'be right, not first' with the reporting of this story. So far, people are doing a great job. #Watertown" Then, at 2:43am, he tweeted, "BPD has identified the names: Suspect 1: Mike Mulugeta. Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi."
    The only problem is that there is no mention of Sunil Tripathi in the audio preceding Hughes' tweet. I've listened to it a dozen times and there's nothing there even remotely resembling Tripathi's name. I've embedded the audio from 2:35 to 2:45 am for your own inspection. Multiple groups of people have been crowdsourcing logs of the police scanner chatter and none of them have found a reference to Tripathi, either. It's just not there.    "

    "Be right, not first" certainly failed big time.

    --
    http://www.geoffreylandis.com