Speculations spread like Wildfire

The events in Boston and Cambridge that we all know about led to the death of someone who didn't have a connection to the bombing. Sunil Tripathi, a 22 year old Pennsylvania native attending Brown University was pulled from the water near India Point Park in Rhode Island by the Brown University Crew Team. He had gone missing in March and was last seen on March 15. And why was he dead? There is no sure cause for his death and his time of death is not known. However, after the Boston bombing occurred and every news corporation in America, as well as websites such as Reddit and Facebook, were searching for info, someone pointed their finger at him. By releasing photos of the suspect on April 15 to Reddit to see if anyone recognized him, someone reported that the missing Tripathi looked like the suspect in the baseball cap. After this Twitter was buzzing with the name and it landed the Twitter top trends list. After the suspects were found, and it became obvious that Sunil had no connection to the bombing, his family had already been bombarded by television inquiries and social media linking Tripathi to the bombing and blaming him as one of the suspects. 

The ridiculous speed of a dangerous rumour via social networking spells danger, as misunderstandings like this happen. Using these mediums such as Reddit to find criminals isn't wise, because it seems to have the potential of putting innocent people like Sunil in the spotlight. The online news coverage on Reddit was distorted by the "dangerous speculations" that the people on the website made about Sunil. The facts proposed by the released photos were distracted by Reddit as the conversation turned to Sunil Tripathi's name, which then spread to one of the most used social networking sites in America, Twitter, where rumors can spread like wildfire.