Explosion at the Boston Marathon.

[phiwum]

Seems to me that identifying possible suspects in photos taken in and around the bombing site and listing why they could possibly be involved would fall under "critical thinking".

Rather depends on how it's done, it seems to me.

Some of the "evidence" I saw was truly slim pickin's, apparently motivated by a desire to possibly find a whole new suspect and maybe win the "find the bad guys" lottery, rather than concern over making false accusations. Honestly, the photo comparisons looked remarkably like the evidence of vicsims we find on letsrollforums.

There was an overconfidence of one's ability to interpret photos for evidence --- at least two different kids where identified as Martin for no obvious reason I could see. Note: I'm not saying either identification was obviously wrong, and in fact, one could probably pick out Martin fairly well if we knew what his family looked like, but I didn't see any such careful reasoning presented. I admit I didn't follow the sleuths' online discussions closely at all.

Anyway, yes, I think that one could carefully and reasonably scour photographic evidence and hope to find some one or thing suspicious. It didn't seem to me that this was how it was done, nor do I think that this is likely to yield evidence missed by professionals and any such public discussions will almost certainly cause more harm than good.

But I also don't think that most online sleuths did great harm in their speculations. The Post appears to be the worst speculator, but no surprises there.

 

[phiwum]

Were these accusations anything more than "this person has a backpack/bag which is large enough to contain a pressure cooker" or "this person is not looking where most people in the photo are looking"?

You're acting like these accusations amounted to "Fellow sleuths, we have our man. You're authorized to shoot on sight," when my recollection is that they were more along the lines of "this seems deserving of more investigation." It hardly seems like The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street.

We just had an Elvis impersonator who was arrested and questioned for days for allegedly threatening public officials with Ricin, then was suddenly released and all charges dropped. As far as I know, none of the people you claim were publicly accused were even held for questioning.

I agree that the accusations (that I saw) tended to be tentative. To the extent that people were explicitly tentative, less harm is done.

As far as the Ricin arrest, I'm not sure your point. Even if the impersonator should not have been arrested and questions and the police blew it, that has nothing to do with whether online sleuths did something they shouldn't have.

The actions of the police can be judged for themselves, and the actions of online sleuths likewise. One doesn't get to claim that their actions are better because someone else did worse.

 

[Dan O.]

Only two people publicly and falsely named and accused by persons who are idly playing armchair detective in their own living rooms? Well, that's all right then! Just the two!

Of course, more people were publicly accused, but only by photo, and so, hey, no harm! At least, they didn't go public saying they'd been harmed by these public accusations, so obviously...

Note: it doesn't matter much whether reddit or any other "sleuthing community" was the source of the accusations. First, I don't know what a "sleuthing community" is, but so long as the source is online and neither a deliberate hoaxster nor professionally speculating, it's an internet sleuth in my book.

Second, even if the source isn't an internet sleuth, the accusations were publicly repeated on widely read sites by persons I refer to as internet sleuths, and that's bad enough. Those individuals are responsible for that bad behavior.



Do you doubt any of the claims I made above and require citations? If so, which ones? I think that everything I've said here is common and irrefutable knowledge, but I could be mistaken.

Two specific instances were brought up on this thread and I soundly refuted both go them. If you dispute my arguments you will need to address them directly. If you thing there are other examples that support your case you will need to bring forward those examples. Currently you are admitting that you are incapable of doing your own research.

Your argument goes on to attack anyone repeating anything on the Internet. I invite readers to look at your immediately preceding post.

I'll just mark you down as one of those same Internet posters that repeat the stories they hear on the Internet as if they were common and irrefutable knowledge without bothering to do any of their own fact checking. Actually, you are even worse than that because you blindly ignore the refutations that you see.

 

[Alphaba]

Under the tutelage of a friend known to the Tsarnaev family only as Misha, Tamerlan gave up boxing and stopped studying music, his family said. He began opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He turned to websites and literature claiming that the CIA was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Jews controlled the world.
[...]
Tsarnaev became an ardent reader of jihadist websites and extremist propaganda, two US officials said. He read Inspire magazine, an English-language online publication produced by al-Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate.
[...]
Tamerlan took an interest in Infowars, a conspiracy theory website. Khozhugov said Tamerlan was interested in finding a copy of the book “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the classic anti-Semitic hoax, first published in Russia in 1903, that claims a Jewish plot to take over the world.

Rest of the article here: http://www.timesofisrael.com/bomb-suspect-influenced-by-mysterious-radical/

 

[Childlike Empress]

So, correct me if I'm wrong, but boiling it down, it seems the United States would be supporting the Chechen rebels for the same reason it supported the Mujahideen in Afghanistan back when the Soviet Union was the evil empire -- to weaken the Russians.

It doesn't seem to me that that would be a credible motivation to support Islamic separatists at this point in history.

Not "the United States". More like the usual suspect neo-con networks who also brought us the "War on Terror" at the same time.

 

[phiwum]

Two specific instances were brought up on this thread and I soundly refuted both go them. If you dispute my arguments you will need to address them directly. If you thing there are other examples that support your case you will need to bring forward those examples. Currently you are admitting that you are incapable of doing your own research.

I don't see how you have refuted anything that I said in the post to which you are replying.

Again, if you need a citation for any of my claims in that particular post, please tell me explicitly which claims you dispute.

Your argument goes on to attack anyone repeating anything on the Internet. I invite readers to look at your immediately preceding post.

Yes, let's look at my immediately preceding post. How did I "attack anyone repeating anything on the Internet"? I said, "even if the source isn't an internet sleuth, the accusations were publicly repeated on widely read sites by persons I refer to as internet sleuths, and that's bad enough." I suppose I should have added "repeated in a supportive manner", but that aside, I stand by that statement. Knowingly publicizing premature accusations is not much better than making them in the first place.

I'll just mark you down as one of those same Internet posters that repeat the stories they hear on the Internet as if they were common and irrefutable knowledge without bothering to do any of their own fact checking. Actually, you are even worse than that because you blindly ignore the refutations that you see.

Once again, if you require any citations for claims I specifically made, let me know which claims.

 

[Stellafane]

Rest of the article here: http://www.timesofisrael.com/bomb-suspect-influenced-by-mysterious-radical/

That last bit about Infowars apparently has Alex Jones and company in a lather -- it's all a plot to close us down, the drones are on the way, yada yada.

It will be interesting to see whether or not Tamerlan's interest in Infowars and CTs happened to be adjacent to his terrorist side, or was a critical component of it. (I suppose there's no real way of knowing, short of Jahar writing "Alex Jones told us to do this!" or something.)

 

[BenBurch]

That last bit about Infowars apparently has Alex Jones and company in a lather -- it's all a plot to close us down, the drones are on the way, yada yada.

It will be interesting to see whether or not Tamerlan's interest in Infowars and CTs happened to be adjacent to his terrorist side, or was a critical component of it. (I suppose there's no real way of knowing, short of Jahar writing "Alex Jones told us to do this!" or something.)

I'd love it if they found that in a journal!

 

[Alphaba]

That last bit about Infowars apparently has Alex Jones and company in a lather -- it's all a plot to close us down, the drones are on the way, yada yada.

It will be interesting to see whether or not Tamerlan's interest in Infowars and CTs happened to be adjacent to his terrorist side, or was a critical component of it. (I suppose there's no real way of knowing, short of Jahar writing "Alex Jones told us to do this!" or something.)

Looks more like a monstrous ideological salad, mixing Mideastern salafist djihadism/Al Qaedism with American CTism/truthism, with antisemitism as bonding sauce. A new meaning for 'melting pot'?

 

[Dan O.]

Yes, let's look at my immediately preceding post. How did I "attack anyone repeating anything on the Internet"? I said, "even if the source isn't an internet sleuth, the accusations were publicly repeated on widely read sites by persons I refer to as internet sleuths, and that's bad enough." I suppose I should have added "repeated in a supportive manner", but that aside, I stand by that statement. Knowingly publicizing premature accusations is not much better than making them in the first place.

By "immediately preceding post" I was reffering to your post above the one I quoted in which you publicly spread an allegation of shoplifting against a named individual. You cast a wide net in which you have firmly ensnared yourself.

 

[phiwum]

By "immediately preceding post" I was reffering to your post above the one I quoted in which you publicly spread an allegation of shoplifting against a named individual. You cast a wide net in which you have firmly ensnared yourself.

Okay, I misinterpreted your comment.

I don't regard the two situations equally. On the one hand, I was repeating a widely reported account that an individual had been arrested for a particular crime. As far as I know, that account is true, was published in reputable sources (e.g., the Boston Globe, I think), and the fact that she was arrested for this is, if true, publicly verifiable.

This is quite different than repeating an accusation made by an amateur sleuth that certain persons pictured at the scene of a bombing are suspicious and may be the bombers.

I honestly cannot fathom how you regard the two situations as morally comparable even if you think that repeating the bombing accusations is not a morally bad act.

I think you're having me on, but if not, please feel free to point out precisely where I claimed or implied that repeating reputably published accounts of arrests that are, as far as one knows, true is an immoral act. If I did so, I promise to apologize and retract that claim, 'cause I don't think it's so.

ETA: Geez Louise, I even explicitly commented that she was not prosecuted for the shoplifting. I cannot believe you think that my post was even vaguely similar to repeating accusations that persons on-hand at the marathon are suspicious and could be the bomber.

 

[Dan O.]

Okay, I misinterpreted your comment.

I don't regard the two situations equally. On the one hand, I was repeating a widely reported account that an individual had been arrested for a particular crime. As far as I know, that account is true, was published in reputable sources (e.g., the Boston Globe, I think), and the fact that she was arrested for this is, if true, publicly verifiable.

You didn't know, you didn't verify and most egregious of all on a skeptics forum, you didn't show your source.

This is quite different than repeating an accusation made by an amateur sleuth that certain persons pictured at the scene of a bombing are suspicious and may be the bombers.

And you miss the fact that these amateur sleuths were referring to publicly available photographs taken of the public in public view and they were stating the reason for their suspiscion and allowing the facts to be reviewed. I have no problem with them doing that on their own forum.

I do have a problem with the hoaxter that created a blog or news article proclaiming that the police had named an individual as a suspect. I also have a problem with the kids spreading rumors by copying and pasting from other sites as a substitute to doing their own research, these kids are not sleuthing. But all of that pails next to the idiots that advance to physical harassment and assault of the suspects and their families. Those idiots ought to be rounded up and shipped off to the internet free land of gitmo.

 

[Noztradamus]

What is the problem with treating them as "just criminals"? After all, they are certainly that, regardless of what else they may be, and it avoids no end of semantic quibbling which fails to lead in any useful direction.
~~~

You can try. But the Parisites will probably name a street after them anyway.

 

[phiwum]

You didn't know, you didn't verify and most egregious of all on a skeptics forum, you didn't show your source.

Now you're just playing games. The claim is widely known and I am more than happy to show a reputable source if requested, or retract my comment that she was arrested in Natick.

Are you asking me to provide a source regarding the arrest? If so, I'll go find my source, which I don't recall for certain off the top of my head. But I don't see any reason to waste my time if you're familiar with the reported incident.

In an informal forum like this, it is reasonable to cite material that is not widely known, and one should provide citations for any material that is genuinely questioned. It's silly to think that one is required to have a citation for everything said, and it would be child's play to show that you don't live up to your own professed standard. (It would also be an example of the very same tu quoque fallacy that you're making here, by the way.)

And you miss the fact that these amateur sleuths were referring to publicly available photographs taken of the public in public view and they were stating the reason for their suspiscion and allowing the facts to be reviewed. I have no problem with them doing that on their own forum.

Whereas, insofar as the forum is both publicly readable and widely read, I do have a problem with it. This is our fundamental disagreement. I'm not sure why you insist on knocking down strawmen that have no apparent relation to anything I've said.

I do have a problem with the hoaxter that created a blog or news article proclaiming that the police had named an individual as a suspect. I also have a problem with the kids spreading rumors by copying and pasting from other sites as a substitute to doing their own research, these kids are not sleuthing. But all of that pails next to the idiots that advance to physical harassment and assault of the suspects and their families. Those idiots ought to be rounded up and shipped off to the internet free land of gitmo.

We don't disagree on this, hyperbole aside.

 

[zeggman]

I agree that the accusations (that I saw) tended to be tentative. To the extent that people were explicitly tentative, less harm is done.

Even if someone said "I'm 99.999% sure this is one of the bombers" there were others to comment, "I don't think we can be that sure."

For instance, I think it may have been in this thread that someone posted a picture of two women standing behind the barricade next to a mailbox, with a package on the ground in front of the barricade. Another photograph showed that this was the location of one of the explosions, and the (I don't remember how tentative) conclusion was that it was probably the package in the photo which exploded.

Other people were quick to point out that the explosion seemed to originate further back in the crowd.

As far as the Ricin arrest, I'm not sure your point. Even if the impersonator should not have been arrested and questions and the police blew it, that has nothing to do with whether online sleuths did something they shouldn't have.

The actions of the police can be judged for themselves, and the actions of online sleuths likewise. One doesn't get to claim that their actions are better because someone else did worse.

I guess my point is that there is a range of harms which might be caused by casting suspicion on an innocent person.

At one end of that range is someone who is accused, tried, convicted, and executed for a crime he didn't commit, followed closely by someone who is not executed but spends the rest of his life in prison. After that, people who are convicted and spend years in prison before being exonerated.

Somewhat lower are people like the Duke rugby players who are arrested, tried, and acquitted.

Then I'd put the Elvis Impersonator, who is arrested, questioned, and released without trial.

The internet sleuths are not authorized to arrest anyone, so their suspicions are given only the weight that the evidence they cite deserves. We saw lots of people with backpacks, and each time one was circled there were people asking if anyone could find pictures of them without their backpacks. One of them appears to have removed his backpack (and likely stood over it) to watch the race. We know that several backpacks were left behind in the panic after the explosions, but to my knowledge none of the people who were implicated by internet sleuthing were ever shown without a backpack after the blasts. If such a picture HAD been found, it would undoubtedly have strengthened suspicions against an innocent person, and under other circumstances that person might even have been the subject of official scrutiny.

In this case we know that one of the hospitalized victims was able to tell investigators that the the bomb which injured him was placed mere seconds before it exploded. That narrowed their need to examine surveillance video considerably, and they were able to identify two solid suspects within a couple of days. It's unlikely that they ever gave much scrutiny to anyone who was suspected by the internet sleuths.

Under other circumstances, though, where the bombs may have been placed minutes, hours, or days before they were detonated, they might not be able to settle on suspects so quickly. Internet sleuths may implicate innocent people with credible suspicions, and some of those innocent people may even be hauled in for questioning. Since cases can be built which will result in the conviction of innocent people, someday it may happen that internet speculation leads to an innocent person being convicted of a crime.

If that does happen, I think the prosecutor and judge/jury will be more responsible for the harm than the internet speculators. They're the ones who have to make sure evidence meets the standard of "beyond a reasonable doubt". People who post opinions on the internet have no requirement to meet that standard, and their opinions should be weighed with that fact in mind.

 

[phiwum]

Even if someone said "I'm 99.999% sure this is one of the bombers" there were others to comment, "I don't think we can be that sure."

For instance, I think it may have been in this thread that someone posted a picture of two women standing behind the barricade next to a mailbox, with a package on the ground in front of the barricade. Another photograph showed that this was the location of one of the explosions, and the (I don't remember how tentative) conclusion was that it was probably the package in the photo which exploded.

Other people were quick to point out that the explosion seemed to originate further back in the crowd.

If one person publicly said, "I'm nigh certain this is the bomber," then we ought to say that he shouldn't have done so. This is true even if others immediately disputed the claim. I'm talking about individual, not group, responsibility here.

I guess my point is that there is a range of harms which might be caused by casting suspicion on an innocent person.

I've snipped the remainder, for the sake of space.

Yes, you're right, there are a degree of harms involved here, and by and large, the less harm, the less wrong done. Probably most persons identified by online sleuths as potential victims suffered only negligible harm.

But there's also a difference in responsibility. The police are supposed to find suspects. Inevitably, they will sometimes question an innocent person. That person suffers more harm than, say, those identified by internet sleuths, but if the police are doing their job well, then they have done no wrong. We recognize that this is their duty, and it's inevitable that sometimes, even when cops are performing their duties well, innocent persons are questioned or even tried.

The armchair sleuths had no similar responsibilities. I don't doubt that they meant well (though perhaps were also motivated by a desire for glory or at least self-satisfaction), but the fact is that when they publicly made accusations that turned out to be mistaken, we should be less ready to forgive them than we forgive police, because their accusations are gratuitous.

Again, I don't think that online sleuths are bad people, or that many of them did anything grossly wrong. I just think that one shouldn't make public accusations (or discuss suspicions of who the bomber is) without considerable care.

 

[Brass]

Not "the United States". More like the usual suspect neo-con networks who also brought us the "War on Terror" at the same time.

Your lack of historical understanding is shocking.

 

[s_pepys]

If one person publicly said, "I'm nigh certain this is the bomber," then we ought to say that he shouldn't have done so. This is true even if others immediately disputed the claim. I'm talking about individual, not group, responsibility here.



I've snipped the remainder, for the sake of space.

Yes, you're right, there are a degree of harms involved here, and by and large, the less harm, the less wrong done. Probably most persons identified by online sleuths as potential victims suffered only negligible harm.

But there's also a difference in responsibility. The police are supposed to find suspects. Inevitably, they will sometimes question an innocent person. That person suffers more harm than, say, those identified by internet sleuths, but if the police are doing their job well, then they have done no wrong. We recognize that this is their duty, and it's inevitable that sometimes, even when cops are performing their duties well, innocent persons are questioned or even tried.

The armchair sleuths had no similar responsibilities. I don't doubt that they meant well (though perhaps were also motivated by a desire for glory or at least self-satisfaction), but the fact is that when they publicly made accusations that turned out to be mistaken, we should be less ready to forgive them than we forgive police, because their accusations are gratuitous.

Again, I don't think that online sleuths are bad people, or that many of them did anything grossly wrong. I just think that one shouldn't make public accusations (or discuss suspicions of who the bomber is) without considerable care.

i didnt make any accusations or speculations about the identity of anyone. i even agree with a lot of the points being raised on both sides. but i was accused of being an "internet slueth" and this thread has been derailed so much its is now pointless as a discussion.

cant you all start a seperate thread about the rights and the wrongs of "the internet sluething" concept and let people who want to discuss the case as it unfolds.

there is an awful lot of high and mighty attitudes going on here from a few posters.

 

[phiwum]

i didnt make any accusations or speculations about the identity of anyone. i even agree with a lot of the points being raised on both sides. but i was accused of being an "internet slueth" and this thread has been derailed so much its is now pointless as a discussion.

cant you all start a seperate thread about the rights and the wrongs of "the internet sluething" concept and let people who want to discuss the case as it unfolds.

there is an awful lot of high and mighty attitudes going on here from a few posters.

Well, I don't know that I accused you of anything, so I don't suppose I'll defend any such accusations. I've no idea what you said that might count as sleuthing.

But I'm not opposed to a thread split.

 

[s_pepys]

Well, I don't know that I accused you of anything, so I don't suppose I'll defend any such accusations. I've no idea what you said that might count as sleuthing.

But I'm not opposed to a thread split.

not you in particular and i definately wouldnt want anyone to "defend" their accusations, its such an extremely tedious subject considering everything that has happened and the amount of important talking points to discuss

thread split gets my vote.