Where is missing brown student

Along with the photo comparison, the user submitted information about the missing Brown student. From there, misinformation and speculation spiraled out of control. Within hours, nasty commenters began invading Sunil's Facebook page.

Later that night, when an MIT police officer was shot and killed, the messages became too much for the Tripathi family. They took down the page, which only further fueled Reddit and Twitter's fire. From The New York Times:. Suspect identified as Sunil Tripathi.

It was a long evening for the Tripathi family. But the damage had already been done. Sunil's sister was called 58 times between 3 and AM that day, Kang reports. The family told Kang it received "hundreds of threatening and anti-Islamic messages though they are not Muslim. Journalists who fed the rumor mill and jumped to conclusions about Sunil Tripathi later apologized to the family, whether on the phone, in tweets, or in articles. Reddit did too. The site's leader wrote that it hoped the lessons learned from Sunil Tripathi would help make the online community more sensitive in the future.

But all the "sorrys" won't change those horrible hours for the Tripathis. For the uninitiated, Reddit has had a thread running called FindBostonBombers, for a couple of days and thanks to this anyone who was brown or with a heavy pack back became a suspect.

In fact, there's a dedicated thread on Reddit , discussing if Sunil was the bomber? What is truly shocking is that people were busy dissecting CCTV footage and sharing pictures of Sunil to compare with the footage and pictures that were being shared on the thread. As this Salon article points out, The entire case was based on vague physical resemblance in low-quality photos, bolstered by the fact that one Twitter user claiming to have gone to school with Tripathi said she thought it looked like him.

Police in tactical gear conduct a search for a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, Friday, April 19, , in Watertown. Associated Press. In fact, the entire thread on FindBostonBombers was based on nothing more than guesswork and brazen speculation on the part of those who were on the thread. This piece on the Atlantic points out , vigilantes have organized themselves on Reddit for a manhunt.

They want justice served. And they're openly debating suspects on the site. They're gonna solve the case! Like real cops on television. In one case, they point out a man in a "blue robe" and how he's holding his backpack. The guy is trying to look nonchalant, maybe? You would expect them to be pointing straight down if they were under the weight of lbs, not angled like that".

On Monday, Reddit general manager Erik Martin apologized for the "dangerous speculation" that "spiraled into very negative consequences for innocent parties. In a blog post, he specifically apologized to the Tripathi family "for the pain they have had to endure.

Tripathi grew up in Radnor, Pa. He was also an accomplished saxophonist.