SXSW Interactive 2014

Citizen Dicks: Solving Murders With Social Media

In the aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombing, the subReddit group /r/findbostonbombers was launched, tossing a dragnet across the internet and catching both good and bad information in the process. The crowdsourcing effort was able to identify clues before the FBI, but critics deemed it a witch hunt. Regardless, the ability of normal citizens to help gather information for criminal cases was undeniable. In the aftermath of an incapacitated teenager's rape at the hands of two high school football players in Steubenville, Ohio, a blogger took to the internet, finding tweets about the crime from witnesses, and taking screen grabs that police would never have seen. These were the two cases that made the news, but right now there are many more digging deep into the web, searching for clues and justice. Where we once had the citizen journalist, we know have the citizen detective, uncovering information that the official investigators either don't have the resources - or skills - to find.