The Internet's front page doesn't like being tarred as a vigilante. But it also knows it is guilty

[DonViejo]

The agony of Reddit
The Internet's front page doesn't like being tarred as a vigilante. But it also knows it is guilty
BY ANDREW LEONARD


Reddit is very upset. “The media” is being mean. Multiple outlets are labeling the site’s crowdsourced search for the Boston bombers as dangerous online vigilantism. And yet, at the very same time, prominent media outlets — namely the New York Post — are engaging in far worse behavior by plastering on their front page photos of supposed “suspects” who are in all likelihood completely innocent. Hypocrisy alert!

Reddit has a thin skin at the best of times. But in a moment of great national angst, tempers are especially prone to flaring. One Redditor even started a thread in the subreddit Find Boston Bombers begging “the media” to be more responsible: “Media Outlets, please stop making the images of potential suspects go viral, then blaming this small subreddit for it. And read the rules we’ve imposed before calling us ‘vigilantes’.”

The opening post in that thread, from “oops777,” declares that “Until the media got involved, none of the images were going anywhere but to the FBI.”

Oops777?s declaration has some serious problems.

Full article:
http://www.salon.com/2013/04/18/the_agony_of_reddit/

[cprise]

1. I don't visit reddit much,

But I do know that anyone in an online forum who simply points at people in photos as suspects... they will look like jacka**es.

In an online forum, readers can readily see the rationale--or lack thereof--for claiming someone is suspicious.

OTOH, the mass media can pronounce someone as a suspect with an air of authority. They have "sources". So even when they are demonstrably wrong (as in the case of the NY Post), a great many people are going to suspend judgement on the newspaper until/if they decide to engage with the issue in a responsible way. Until then, they will also carry a preconceived notion of what marathon bomber looks like.

The way that mass media go about their guessing is much more egregious than what goes on at sites like reddit, if for no other reason that the former purport to be trained journalists dealing in facts. This is the same dynamic that was exploited to build support for the Iraq war.