Student wrongly tied to Boston bombings found dead

reply to post by sulaw


You make some very good points.

Also as has been pointed out it is far from clear that this person did indeed take their own life as a result of this, but as Nef pointed out above what definitely has happened is that his already distraught family was hounded and targeted as a result of his internet identification.

What I see as happening is that we are running to keep up in the quicksand that is the pace of technological change.
i guess that this kind of thing has always happened but on a small scale (people gossiping over garden fences and false accusations within communities that lead to ostracization and worse) Now however every single one of us has the power to reach a global audience with a single click.

I wonder if people will adapt themselves to this change or, more likely if this kind of thing is going to be used as a starting point for the introduction of imposed censorship of our internet freedoms. I truly would like to think that people are responsible enough to eventually adapt to the new way that media works, I can't say that it looks hopeful though.

Seems like folks are in denial here.

"he was missing before..." yes.

But as I said above, what about his family??

Their kid was missing, then a bunch of chuckleheads on the net link him to something, post up all the details on line and suddenly the family gets a bucket load of harrassment to deal with AS WELL as a missing son.

reply to post by neformore


Those chuckleheads are the media you just gave a pass to in regards to what they are supposed to report.

Talk about being in denial.

I think this has more to do with the dark side of all of us. The only part the Internet plays in this is to amplify it exponentially as it can spread gossip and rumors so fast and to such a broad audience. People are the same but now we all have a giant megaphone to broadcast our own stupidity and failings.

As was pointed out here, the victimization is not limited to just this one person, but spreads to their family, friends and those who knew him.

No doubt some involved will continue to try and justify their leap to conclusions based on blurry photo's / videos. Some will instead of simply admitting it was wrong that this happened, find a way to justify their own error by rationalizing. They will try and justify this somehow rather than simply admit they were drawn into what amounts to an Internet Lynch Mob.

My heart goes out to this persons family and loved ones. I personally don't think those involved in the insane leap to conclusions deserve any understanding at all for their part in the character assassination based on what amounts to nothing.

I believe we will see this again and again in the future as it is part of our dark nature. Gossiping, spreading rumors and participation in Lynch Mobs has been part of our nature all along and it will not go away.

reply to post by ParasuvO


OK. Lets talk about it, and who's in it.

'Cause this is down to both the media and the people who decided to go on a witch hunt and start posting accusations, allegations and personal info across the net.

So are you defending both, or condeming both? You can't blame one or the other, because both are as bad.

I didn't give a pass to anyone. Its equal blame for the harrassment of the family.

It is not guaranteed he would have been found WITHOUT those chuckleheads! They brought mass-attention to his case. He was found a week after he got accused online.
They couldn't find him in nearly two months...
Gets falsely ID'd online....
Found in 1 week.....no foul play....20-something....didn't take keys or cell phone or wallet....

It sounds suspicious and you can't say otherwise. If this was a movie, we would think it was him until the twist said otherwise....hollywood baby

reply to post by Ascent13


Totally agree.

Who first suggested Sunil as a possible bomber? Was it a friend of his? Was it somebody who for some reason thought, hey, I'd better check all the missing people lists all over America because I just bet it was one of them pesky missing people wot done it! That is a strange way to think, imo. And he wasn't even a recent missing person, FFS.

Of all the people in all the world, the person suspected was a missing person who has been subsequently found dead. The chances of a missing person a being incorrectly identified is substantially lower that the chances of a misidentification of someone who was NOT missing. I mean how many missing people are there in contrast to the number of non-missing people? 1:10,000?

And since when did MSM base their news on Internet message boards - (esp. reddit) particularly in situations as grave as the bombing? I find it hard to think ANY editor would be happy to do this ever, even the most money-hungry. They didn't even check where their info was coming from, and I mean the poster who alleged it in the first place not Reddit. It would go against every editorial philosophy ever invented. Really confusing.

reply to post by Archie


I think a lot of people are misguided. Everyone feels for the family. Whether it was the missing guy, some random dude in Alabama, or the actual bombers. The families knew nothing as far as we know. Someone online comparing the missing student to the bomber is NOT an attack on the family and shouldn't be construed as such. I have not seen anyone online accuse or compare his family members or friends to the bombers, just him. Just him, not the family

I do not agree w/ this OP at all!!! If you or others don't like people being detectives using low-res, hi-res, blurry, sharp video then write your Congressmen and ask for the video camera's to be taken down.

I, like so many Americans resent the fact that our Privacy has been invaded like it has w/ all these cameras to begin with.

On another note....if this person did kill themselves...( which we have no idea....the autopsy hasn't been preformed yet) because they were mistakenly identified...holy crap get ahold of yourself!!!! Many people have been mistakenly identified and they managed to not take their own lives.

reply to post by davespanners


His name sounds Hindu to me, which was part of my surprise when he was labelled a suspect. In fact, I was truly astonished. Then I woke up the next morning and we had completely different suspects and his name was erased from memory. It was a very strange experience.

I was highly doubtful that he was a suspect, and I suspected that he would be the new poster child for why philosophy students are dangerous and we need repression on college campuses. I actually went to bed terrified that this would be the case. Fortunately that was not the case.

reply to post by neformore


Yes his family were harrassed and some were calling for their death!!
Appalling behavior. Reddit has apologised but that is not good enough imo.
Also, what is the chances that he was 'depressed' and went off somewhere for some time out...then sees the news and commits suicide? It is possible, perhaps we will never find out either.

Originally posted by davespanners


If this does turn out to be someone killing themselves as the result of an internet vigilante campaign where people clamored to find and identify publicly anyone they could through blurry low res photographs then I think we may have just seen the Internets darkest day so far.

So an internet vigilante campaign is the cause of a student death?
People were clamouring to find and identify "ANYBODY"?
See here is your "thinking" that the internet has just seen its darkest day.
You are not thinking that results in a statement like that you are instead FEELING.
You are letting your feelings do your thinking for you.

The event has also seen some of the people that were part of the rush to identify suspects now themselves being vilified and blamed in another kind of witch hunt.

Yawn,

I wonder if we as internet users could collectively agree that this should never happen again (no matter what the cause of this persons death turns out to be) and that we should leave the business of identifying suspects in murder cases to the professionals?

Since you are appealing to the crowd so to say, I will say that I disagree with you , and your thinking processes. I believe it will happen again and probably sooner rather than later. I also disagree about leaving the job of identification to the "Professionals".

www.usatoday.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

A cameraman with a Hartford affiliate of the CBS television network also tweeted: 'BPD scanner has identified the names' before naming 'Suspect 2' as Sunil Tripathi.

A review of recordings from police radio traffic, though, shows Tripathi was never mentioned by police, according to the Atlantic.


from here

reply to post by sulaw


I think kids need to harden the **** up.

Seriously, what kind of kids do we want in tomorrows world if they cant cop some ridicule ONLINE!

Hell, i got pushed around at school and teased, no big deal. Everyone does, its a part of growing up and learning to stand up for yourself.

Kids now a days, what a joke. We're turning into a planet of whimps.

Originally posted by Agit8dChop
reply to post by sulaw

 

I think kids need to harden the **** up.

Seriously, what kind of kids do we want in tomorrows world if they cant cop some ridicule ONLINE!

Hell, i got pushed around at school and teased, no big deal. Everyone does, its a part of growing up and learning to stand up for yourself.

Kids now a days, what a joke. We're turning into a planet of whimps.

Are death threats mere ridicule?

Originally posted by davespanners


If this does turn out to be someone killing themselves as the result of an internet vigilante campaign where people clamored to find and identify publicly anyone they could through blurry low res photographs then I think we may have just seen the Internets darkest day so far.

The event has also seen some of the people that were part of the rush to identify suspects now themselves being vilified and blamed in another kind of witch hunt.

I wonder if we as internet users could collectively agree that this should never happen again (no matter what the cause of this persons death turns out to be) and that we should leave the business of identifying suspects in murder cases to the professionals?

www.usatoday.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Um, no. Your not going to get internet users to collectively agree to anything first of all and what your talking about and suggesting is far too slippery a slope to go down.

Censorship on that level because of a death that the cause hasn't even been determined yet is... Well, unwise. That is of course unless your on the side of the fence that feels that "Saving one life" is worth pulling the second amendment for. I'm not saying thats the case, I'm just saying it sounds like it.

reply to post by Thurisaz


Yes...

Look the Simpsons said it best

Computer screen threatening Homer

Lisa: '' Can I turn this off ''
Lisa unplugs monitor.

If someone is picking on you on facebook, gmail turn your computer off and go play with a friend.
If someone is picking on you in the school yard, stand up for yourself.
If someone is threatening on online turn the computer off
If someone is threatening you in the street, stand up for yourself.

reply to post by davespanners

I wonder if we as internet users could collectively agree that this should never happen again (no matter what the cause of this persons death turns out to be) and that we should leave the business of identifying suspects in murder cases to the professionals?

I remember seeing late 80s i recall, watching a Australian current affairs program (cant remember the name )but which came on right after the news, where the host presenter would read out stories of news of " ratings" interest. The host comes on and bags some guy as having murdered his wife, and yet the cops cant put him in jail because they cant find her body and have no evidence he did it. The next day the Host presents a story that last night the man suicided and, and coincidently that same nigh the real killer confessed and showed the cops where the body was.

The presenter then goes something like oh well sometimes our sources give us misleading information which can lead to tragic events like this, ok now lets move on to a another story, something which will brighthen your day. That news presenter is retired i believe but what a dirt bag.

The internet hasnt created this tragedy, its the media obesssion with ratings and popularity that drives tragic outcomes like this.

This article explains how the mix up happened by way of tweets and the police scanners mentioning his name, has audio recording of the scanner broadcast that doesn't seems to have his name afterall. Unless it was edited out to online listeners recording it.

Link

He had been missing since before the bombings. He was already a missing person when the bombings happened.