Conner

On April 15, 2013 two bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon at 2:49 PM. The bombs ended up killing 3 people and injuring more than 250, marking it as the deadliest domestic terrorist attack in the last ten years for the United States. In the days following, a massive manhunt for the people responsible ensued, but this manhunt was not a traditional one.

 

 Footage of the bombing and aftermath courtesy of The Boston Globe

The Boston Police Department and FBI began working together to gather video footage and any images that could help lead them to whomever committed this act. These organizations also had the ability to comb the crime scene for evidence as well as other legal rights that allowed them to move swiftly and helped lead them to killing one and capturing another of the two individuals behind the attacks.

This last thought is not some sort of crazy revelation: we all know that the police and other government organizations have more legal power than the average citizen (and most of us respect that power). But the reason I mention this, is to highlight a new trend or a new phenomenon.What about all of the people behind the manhunt that had no connection to any law enforcement in the United States? What about all these crime solvers that are behind their computers at home?

 Crowd-sourcing 

Crowd-sourcing is a new phenomena. The concept behind it is relatively simple: use a whole bunch of people using computers to complete a task. Okay, I am not Merriam or Webster and those two define the word as: ” the practice of obtaining needed services, ideas, or content by soliciting contributions from a large group of people, and especially from an online community, rather than from traditional employees or suppliers.”  Every time you type in one of those CAPTCHA boxes (when someone is “checking to see if you’re human”) you are crowd-sourcing. You, along with others who have to do the same, are helping contribute to verify the symbols in the picture. A better example of crowd-sourcing is Wikipedia. On Wikipedia, people from all over contribute to articles and supply sources of information to back up what they write. The best aspect of crowd-sourcing is that it allows for an easy way to exchange information for a low cost. That does not mean that crowd-sourcing is always academic or done with good-intentions, sometimes it’s just done for fun. In the case of the Boston bombings, crowd-sourcing was being used by the internet community to find the people responsible for the attacks.

 Reddit and 4chan

Reddit.com and 4chan.org are websites on the internet that have developed their own community and culture. These sites are for posting all sorts of content and they are mostly for entertainment purposes.

Both Reddit and 4chan had masses of people trying to figure out who the Boston bombers were. In the process they hurt the reputation of many individuals by accusing them using pictures from the marathon and by merely speculating. Most people do not realize that they can ruin people’s reputation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Examples of pictures from these sites following the bombings

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And that is just what ended up happening. There were a few people that were put in the spotlight because of these internet vigilantes. These two websites convinced so many people that somehow The New York Post  published the next day’s newspaper with the image of the two suspects covering the whole page.