Read on Twitter
1. I know social media activists are trying to help identify a lot of the people that were at the Jan 6 insurrection, but I’m curious how people feel about this so-called “crowd sourced investigations”? Here’s a short thread on several instances where this has gone wrong:
2. To start, there’s the famous case of Sunil Tripathi from Boston, a young man struggling with depression, who had gone missing in mid-March 2013. After the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013 he was misidentified by social media users as a potential bomber https://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/04/18/474671097/how-social-media-smeared-a-missing-student-as-a-terrorism-suspect
3. There’s also a great documentary about his case: http://www.helpusfindsuniltripathi.com/
4. After the Paris attacks, Veerender Jubbal’s photo circulated as a potential suspect. An innocent photo he posted of himself was doctored, was picked up by some media, and then his life was for a time made absolute hell. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-intersect/wp/2015/11/16/how-internet-hoaxers-tricked-the-world-into-believing-this-random-sikh-guy-was-a-paris-terrorist/
5. I remember vividly that a few activists and journalists were asking me whether I think one of the attackers could be a “Sikh convert to Islam from Canada”. All of that began on social media.
6. Then there’s the case of the guy who harassed and attacked a group of people, including a young girl, putting up signs in support of George Floyd.
The internet went after the wrong guy and turned his life upside down. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/what-its-like-to-get-doxed-for-taking-a-bike-ride.html
The internet went after the wrong guy and turned his life upside down. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/06/what-its-like-to-get-doxed-for-taking-a-bike-ride.html
7. After the attack in Nashville, and after the name Anthony Quinn Warner started circulating, people on social media started picking on a guy named Tony Warner. They went through his and his wife’s Facebook page and put photos of them on the internet. https://www.wsmv.com/news/when-do-people-take-responsibility-man-wrongfully-accused-by-social-media-posts-of-being-bombing/article_46a28db8-4968-11eb-afbc-e7075621c086.html
8. In the first case after Capitol Hill, a Chicago firefighter from Mount Greenwood was called a terrorist and accused of killing a cop with a fire extinguisher. The person they accused was actually grocery shopping in Chicago. https://patch.com/illinois/chicago/trolls-wrongly-accused-retired-firefighter-capitol-riot-murder
9. I know not every social media investigator isn't built the same, and some do excellent work. But, we also have to take into account the damage it can do if you’re wrong.
10/10. Curious to hear what others think, whether there are best practices in this area, how ethical questions are dealt with, and so on. I have zero skills to do any of this, so interested in what others think.
