Probably the most concerning attitude around the snafu was this: Which became rampant during Reddit's sleuthing. People didn't have the sense to know what they were doing and caused a huge mess. The pervasive egoism on Reddit is pretty detrimental. There's this sense that they can do anything better than the media or that the real truth can surface there when it can't anywhere else. But when it comes to something that matters, they don't know their limits. Reddit isn't a source of news. It's an aggregator. Yet it's become popular opinion that Reddit should be about original content and breaking news; that it should be the source. You think crowd-sourcing is good for news and investigation? Well it's no doubt even better at hive-minding, sensationalism and snowballing. These were issues everyone was well aware were problematic with Reddit before it was thrust-forth as an investigative platform. Why in the hell would people expect this combination to end well? A person is smart; people are dumb. It's an excellent system to promote the worst aspects of people. So whether Reddit's naming suspects in the marathon bombing or spreading questionable theories about the Dorner case, be a smart person and be skeptical.“In 2013, all you need [is] a connection to the Boston police scanner and a Twitter feed to know what’s up. We don’t even need TV anymore,” shifted the now-fervid speculation to established fact
As much as I want to see reddit torn apart by every feminist with access to a mainstream media column for /r/beatingwomen over the course of a few weeks, I will tentatively come to their defence in some form by saying that's it's not just reddit. Reddit's structure and system might make it an echo chamber, but it's an echo chamber for a certain type of internaut which exists already. During the Boston bombing aftermath I tuned into @youranonnews to get the updates. I think the mentality is egocentric (even though I fed off it for up-to-the-second information), and it may well be attracted to reddit's warm strokes and upvote-for-mutual-validation practices, but it's limited to the reddit.com domain in the slightest. Anon had a police scanner (an online version I think) and were posting everything they heard on the scanner like every second via twitter. Equally, they didn't get stuck into photo detective work in earnest until someone posted 'convincing evidence' assembled by some kid on 4chan. So it's not just reddit. Eventually the snowflakes and general losers of the internet will make their way to the reddit honeytrap, so maybe it will ultimately become the largest congregation and clearest example of this perspective, but it's not reddit.com per se.