Social Media and Racial Profiling

Hello Obsessionities,

I recently posted about the death of Brown University Student Sunil Tripathi. His death; although the exact causes are unknown; is seen to be related to the online frenzy that happened about him while he was missing.

In case you aren’t up to date on the matter here is what happened.

After the bombings, photos were sent out by the FBI, nationwide, of what was believed to be the two suspects. Students at Brown University began to talk and rumors began to spread that one of the suspects; now officially identified at 19 year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev; was their fellow Brown classmate Tripathi.

Tripathi was mysteriously missing since March 16^th and this only fueled people’s ideas that he was one of the Boston Marathon bombers. When Tripathi’s body was pulled out of the Providence River by the Brown University crew coach on April 25^th the body was said to have looked like it was there for some time.

Twitter and another website called Reddit were the platforms used to spiral the speculations that Tripathi was one of the Boston Marathon bombers. Reddit apologized to Tripathi’s family for fueling “online witch hunts and dangerous speculation which spiraled into very negative consequences for innocent parties.”

In today’s society everyone is wired in to at least one social media platform. While these sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Pinterest allow for people all over the world to come together and stay connected it can easily be missed used.

When social media makes the news; and not for another software update; it regularly has a tie to bullying. With one status, video, or tweet hundreds to thousands to millions of people can instantly be in the loop. It is so easy for anyone, especially kids, to get angry or sad and post it on the internet. It is not understood that these posts never go away no matter how much you hit the delete button. When it comes to the World Wide Web nothing is secret and nothing goes away.

In the case of Sunil Tripathi, it was college age students who were misusing social media. They saw a photo that was distributed by the FBI; one student claimed it looked like Tripathi and people started to “jump on the bandwagon.”

This notion that Tripathi was missing because he was the Boston Marathon Bomber spread like fire and with every person who claimed it was him the hatred comments that followed grew worse. So, with no evidence, only one student claiming it was Tripathi and then posting that online the ignorance of individuals followed.

It is easy to believe that if you see it on the internet it must be true. But, as the internet grew into what it is today it became easier for whomever to post about whatever, whenever they wanted. Not everything that is written on the internet is credible.

This situation could have been stopped if only a handful more students bothered to look at the picture or speak up on his behalf, instead of trusting one kid who racially profiled a missing kid to being the Boston Marathon bomber.

In the universe that is the internet, it is easy to become a victim and no one knows it better than social media’s latest victim Sunil Tripathi.

Until Next Sunday!
--CaitShannon