Explosion at the Boston Marathon.

Hourglassmemory said:
Thank you for your replies, abaddon.
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You are welcome.

Hourglassmemory said:
I don't understand your rather blunt attitude in your reply as I am not a CT at all. I was, years ago, but I am no longer. You can even see posts of mine telling the story of my journey back to rationality on this forum. This forum has helped me immensely!
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Sorry to be blunt, but there is no amount of crackpottery wheeled out here, and I tend to be a little short with that malarkey.


Hourglassmemory said:
I believe you may have judged my intentions too quickly. I thought I had clearly expressed them at the top of my first post. Maybe it was my fault.
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Perhaps so, but see above.


Hourglassmemory said:
I did not come here believing in some notion that this was conspiracy. I currently hold the position that the CT claims around this are based on a lot of ignorance and pictures lacking context.
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OK

Hourglassmemory said:
I asked the questions to solve a few holes in my own understanding. That's all. I want to have the facts straight before I address the people close to me who are now being fooled by simple minded speculation.
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Fair enough.

Hourglassmemory said:
You ask for pictures (supposed "older brother" on asphalt) and speak of pictures (actual older brother dead in the hospital), both of which I've seen and are, in fact, in the link I provided. I even put a warning under the link because, as you say, the post-mortem photos are not for the faint of heart at all.
Would I be wrong in assuming you didn't click the link and "went straight for the jugular", so to speak? ;) I won't take your brusqueness to heart.
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Yup. I did go for the jugular. Be honest. You presented it as an obvious target.

Hourglassmemory said:
You asked me why I indulged in "pointless speculation". It is because that kind of speculation is surely going on in the minds of those I care about and who are now being convinced by this kind of CT nonsense. I put it there because I will surely face that kind of thing when discussing this with them and was hoping others responding to it would give me ideas on how to tackle it.
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Surely you must be aware of the spectacular speculation going on?

Hourglassmemory said:
Your replies did help.
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Maybe. I get very snitty very quickly when I see what I percieve to be plain flat out wrong.

Hourglassmemory said:
Also, I'm very sorry you've had to deal with a very difficult situation and am sorry for your loss, whoever the person was. :(
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You misinterpret. I did not know the guy. All I knew was he was a criminal who overreached. He bled out before me. I doubt it is possible to NOT feel empathy in such circumstance.
 
abaddon said:
Sorry to be blunt, but there is no amount of crackpottery wheeled out here, and I tend to be a little short with that malarkey.
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:) I'm glad it's settled.
I understand the reams of crap the human mind is capable of producing in the absence of evidence and data.
I also understand that by reproducing speculative scenarios created by other people may inadvertently keep silly nonsense alive. I guess that just comes with the territory of contemplating (not necessarily accepting) these ideas.

I understand how stuff of this kind can be very annoying, but having been on the crazy side myself I tend to be a little bit more patient now. :)
 
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Hourglassmemory said:
First, I would like to thank you for your reply.
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You're welcome. I understood you were wanting clarification, not promulgating the CT yourself.

I understand abaddon's response though, and have been a bit quick off the mark myself at times. Unfortunately, many CTers turn up Just Asking Questions, ignore the answers and pretty soon turn out to be full-blown conspiracy nutters. It's a pattern most of us recognise.


Hourglassmemory said:
Second, is it possible to transfer and merge my post and your reply to that thread so it is in a better context?
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I posted a link in the CT thread to my reply to you.
 
Dan O. said:
It's funny you should say that. I went looking for those egregious violations of privacy by the junior g-men Internet sleuths. But what I kept finding was actual cops making arrests based on nothing but suspiscion or hunches and main stream journalists tripping over each other to get the scoop.

Is what those junior g-men did as a whole really any worse than the "skeptics" here that condem them?
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Well, if any of the Internet sleuths end up getting taken to court for their actions, which is actually possible given what was said here, then I'm sure what you've stated above will serve as a rock-solid legal defense for them :)
 
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phiwum said:
Are you honestly doubting that internet sleuths published names and faces?

Surely, no one can doubt that there were photos discussed online showing faces of individuals the online sleuths suspected.

Nor can anyone doubt that online sleuths openly discussed their suspicions of Tripathi, for instance.

Do you honestly ask for citations of both?
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We have multiple posts in this very thread which were part of exactly this kind of publishing of names and faces, etc. Are some people here now attempting to deny that this took place, in this very thread?

Do we really have to dig up those posts (again!) and shove people's faces in them? Wow...
 
s_pepys said:
bbc article on reddits intrnt accusations.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22263020
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Yup. Somebody's afraid they're going to get sued, alright. From the link...

Its Find Boston Bombers thread - known as a subreddit - wrongly named several people as suspects.

The misidentified included 17-year-old Salah Barhoun and missing 22-year-old Sunil Tripathi.

Reddit has admitted that it helped to fuel "online witch hunts". The debacle has fuelled debate about how far such speculation should go in future.

"We all need to look at what happened and make sure that in the future we do everything we can to help and not hinder crisis situations," the apology read.

"Though started with noble intentions, some of the activity on Reddit fuelled online witch hunts and dangerous speculation which spiralled into very negative consequences for innocent parties."...
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As someone said upthread: it's all fun and games until you lose your life savings. At least Reddit has had the guts to step up and admit their mistakes; too bad some here continue to double-down on defending those mistakes.

Incidentally, now that Reddit has taken this step, it will be interesting to see who follows, whether they be online sites such as Facebook or even the JREF itself. I think the former is likely, but the latter not so much, just from a pure numbers standpoint.

ETA: By "from a pure numbers standpoint", I mean that there wasn't as much (near as I can tell) potentially damaging speculation here as on other, much more heavily populated sites such as Reddit and FB.
 
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blue sock monkey said:
CNN has Andrew Kitzenberg's photos here. He lives in a house on Laurel Street near Dexter Avenue in Watertown where the shoot-out took place.
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Kind of a shame that he took them down - having the time stamp and caption for each photo made it a lot easier to make sense of what was going on in each photo. I saw it not long after he put it up and there were already comments from conspiracy nutters niggling about their various obsessions.
 
Dan O. said:
Was it Internet sleuths that named Abdulrahman Ali Alharbi, interrogated him in the hospital, searched his apartment and claimed he was being deported because he was on the terrorist watch list?

Yes, I ask you to provide evidence to support your case and not just echo baseless rumors like a junior g-man Internet sleuth.
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Ahem... I believe you asked for evidence?

Reddit apologises for online Boston 'witch hunt'
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-22263020

Its Find Boston Bombers thread - known as a subreddit - wrongly named several people as suspects.

The misidentified included 17-year-old Salah Barhoun and missing 22-year-old Sunil Tripathi.

Reddit has admitted that it helped to fuel "online witch hunts". The debacle has fuelled debate about how far such speculation should go in future.

"We all need to look at what happened and make sure that in the future we do everything we can to help and not hinder crisis situations," the apology read.

"Though started with noble intentions, some of the activity on Reddit fuelled online witch hunts and dangerous speculation which spiralled into very negative consequences for innocent parties." ...
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:rolleyes:
 
Magenta said:
Kind of a shame that he took them down - having the time stamp and caption for each photo made it a lot easier to make sense of what was going on in each photo. I saw it not long after he put it up and there were already comments from conspiracy nutters niggling about their various obsessions.
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Here they are with the captions:

http://www.cbsnews.com/2300-201_162-10016620.html
 
Dan O. said:
So, according to a JREF poster, blogger = Internet sleuth. Why didn't you just say bloggers were the problem from the begining. I thought you were attacking those fine kids at sites like reddit for trying to be helpfull.
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Once again, I will emphasize that we had people here, in this very thread, do precisely this. Try looking back to, oh, around page 28 or so in the thread and I think you'll see what I mean.
 
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Doghouse Reilly said:
It is now being reported that the hospitalized bomber has admitted his role and says that his brother was the mastermind. He claims the motive was to avenge Islam.
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Source?

If accurate... holy crapballs. The right-wing is going to go even crazier now :boggled:
 
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AdMan said:
I admire the guy. With bullets flying all over the place and bombs going off, I wouldn't be standing at the window taking pictures...
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And with steady hands! He did take some precautions though:


As I ran into my room, overwhelmed by shock, adrenaline, and curiosity, I jumped onto my bed to stay below the windows but also have a clear view at the shooters and photograph the event. As soon as I was laying safely on my bed I started taking pictures with my iPhone 5 and captured the following images
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MattusMaximus said:
Well, if any of the Internet sleuths end up getting taken to court for their actions, which is actually possible given what was said here, then I'm sure what you've stated above will serve as a rock-solid legal defense for them :)
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Can you really not tell the difference between what was going on in the armature sleuthing this last week and intentional malicious defamation?
 
Orphia Nay said:
This thread is weird. Are you talking about "internet sleuths" on this forum?
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Not sure. That's for the lawyers to decide. There are surely sites (such as Reddit and FB) which were orders of magnitude worse than what we saw here, by comparison. I'm guessing that's why Reddit is issuing its apology so publicly now: because they're afraid of getting their collective asses sued off.

But despite the fact that we were better than much of the rest of the Internet, in this very thread, back on page 28 or so, there were people who posted photos and names of people who were wrongfully identified.

As I said, it's a question for the lawyers, if a lawsuit comes of it. I think it's unlikely, but there you go.
 
Dan O. said:
Can you really not tell the difference between what was going on in the armature sleuthing this last week and intentional malicious defamation?
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Tell you what... offer that as a legal defense to anyone hauled into court over their Internet sleuthing that led to innocent people being defamed. Let me know how that works out.
 
MattusMaximus said:
Once again, I will emphasize that we had people here, in this very thread, do precisely this. Try looking back to, oh, around page 28 or so in the thread and I think you'll see what I mean.
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You continue to blame a whole group for the actions of a few individuals. Some people call that bigotry.
 
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