Crowdsourced justice was an abject failure in the wake of the Boston bombings, but with the right tools and motives it could be a boon

AFTER the chaos of the explosions came the shambles of the amateur manhunt. Within hours of two bombs going off at the finishing line of the Boston marathon, self-appointed sleuths were poring over images posted on social media looking for suspects. They identified plenty. None of them were the bombers.

This “internet vigilantism” has rightly attracted opprobrium. Dozens of innocent bystanders were smeared, many of them simply because of their skin colour – what one commentator called a game of “racist Where’s Wally”. Some of the unfairly accused feared for their lives. Shamefully, elements of the mainstream media jumped on the bandwagon.

And so the first big experiment in technologically crowdsourced law enforcement ended in disgrace and failure. Mainstream opinion is convinced amateurs have no business playing cops and bombers and that policing might be one job where a prefix of “citizen” doesn’t belong.

But let’s not rush to judgement and waste a possible opportunity. If harnessed properly, crowdsourcing could become an effective adjunct to conventional police work (see “Nowhere to hide: The next manhunt will be crowdsourced“).


One reason it went so badly wrong was that Reddit, the social media site hosting most of the action, was not designed for solving crimes. But it is not hard to imagine social media tools being modified for the purpose, with appropriate safeguards built in. Indeed, such tools are already in the works.

Perhaps the only positive outcome of the fiasco was to reveal the enormous amount of goodwill that exists out there. Ordinary citizens gave their time for free trying to do the right thing (though many were probably glory hunters). The fact that it spiralled out of control does not negate that.

Perhaps the only positive outcome was to reveal the amount of good will that exists out there

The reputation of crowdsourced sleuthing is in the gutter for now, but human nature being what it is we surely haven’t seen the last of it. Next time a major crime is committed under the gaze of social media, citizen sleuths need to learn lessons – or do irreparable damage to a promising technology. Specifically, they need to accept that while crowds sometimes have wisdom, they also have a nasty habit of turning into mobs.

This article appeared in print under the headline “Don’t write off citizen cops”