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Online detectives
網路偵探
Boston bombings shows pitfalls and benefits of criminal investigations in the digital age
波士頓爆炸案顯示數位時代刑事調查的陷阱和好處 |
| The hunt for the bombers behind the deadly Boston Marathon attacks didn't take place only on the streets with professional police officers. In an era of digital interactivity, it also unfolded around the world from the desks of ordinary people | 波士頓馬拉松炸彈客的追捕行動，不只是專業警察在街道上進行。在數位互動媒體的時代，它也在世界各地從普通百姓的辦公桌上展開。 |
| Fueled by Twitter, online forums like Reddit, smartphones and relays of police scanners, thousands of people played armchair detective as police searched for men who turned out to be suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, ethnic Chechen brothers who had immigrated from southern Russia. | 在推特的推波助瀾下，網路論壇如 Reddit，智慧手機和警察頻道轉播的推動下，成千上萬人扮演了安樂椅偵探（即不作深入調查的偵探），同時警方搜查犯罪嫌疑人，從俄羅斯南部移民美國的車臣族兄弟佐哈查納耶夫和塔默蘭查納耶夫。 |
| But as amateur online sleuths began identifying possible culprits, people were wrongly accused or placed under suspicion. It showed the damage that digital investigators can cause and posed a question: In the social media generation, what does law enforcement unleash when, by implication, it deputizes the public for help? | 但當業餘網路偵探開始物色疑犯時，人們卻遭到錯誤指控或懷疑。這表示數位調查可能會導致損害，並提出了一個問題：在社群媒體時代，執法應在什麼時間點釋放怎麼樣的訊息，也就是他們應如何代理公眾協助？ |
| "The FBI kind of opened the door when it asked for help," said Hanson R. Hosein, a professor of digital media at the University of Washington. "It was almost like it was put up as a challenge to members of the online community, and they rose to it. They can be either really helpful or mob rule." | 華盛頓大學數位媒體教授漢森胡辛表示：「當聯邦調查局要求幫助時，這就像是敞開了大門。這是幾乎就像是對網路社區成員的挑戰，而他們接受了這項挑戰。但這可能帶來真正幫助、卻也可能導致暴民統治。」 |
| The bombings have been the highest profile case in which the public has joined an active investigation, showing the pitfalls and benefits of new technology. It's certainly not vigilantism, but it's not standard policing, either. It's perhaps something new — the law-enforcement equivalent of citizen journalism. | 這次的爆炸案是民眾投入積極調查最受矚目的案件之一，這事件已顯示新技術的缺陷和好處。這當然不是自警團，但也不是標準的警察作業。這也許是新的東西 —— 即相當於執法版本的公民新聞。 |
| After the bombings, Reddit users began piecing together clues in the pictures and videos. They pointed out men who were wearing backpacks standing in the crowd. They looked at the straps of backpacks to compare them with the ones thought to have carried the bombs. They analyzed the bombs' blasts and people's gazes. | 爆炸事件發生後，Reddit 用戶開始拼湊線索、圖片和視頻。他們指出背著背包站在人群中的男人。他們比較背包的肩帶並認為那是攜帶炸彈的背包的肩帶。他們也分析了炸彈爆炸和在場者的目光。 |
| While listening to a police scanner, Reddit and Twitter users thought they had heard the name of a Brown University student missing since March, and one user posted a news story about his disappearance. That assumption proved wrong — and there was a cost. The missing student's family, besieged with ugly comments, temporarily took down a Facebook page asking for help finding him. A few hours later, the online detectives said sorry. | 當聽警察頻道的內容時，Reddit 和 Twitter 用戶認為他們聽到一個自三月份以來失蹤的布朗大學學生的名字，一名用戶發布了關於他失蹤的新聞報導。這假設被證明是錯誤的，而且這項錯誤已造成傷害。失蹤學生的家庭，被惡言轟炸，並暫時關閉了一個要求幫助尋找他的臉書網頁。幾個小時後，網路偵探 便為此致歉。 |
| Some of the amateur police work didn't sit well with the professionals, but Hosein said that the FBI's call for help was no different than a "Wanted: Dead or Alive" poster from the 1800's — albeit with much more distribution. But he feels that after this saga, people will eventually learn to exercise caution. "There's a sense that we're learning collectively, that we actually have to take on some of the rules about sources that journalists have used in the past," Hosein said. | 專業警察對一些業餘警察的工作並不認同，但胡辛說，聯邦調查局的呼籲跟十九世紀的「通緝：死或生」海報除了分佈更廣外，其實是大同小異的。但他覺得在這起驚心動魄的攻擊之後，人們終究會學習要審慎行事。 胡辛表示：「從某種意義上說，有一種集體學習的氛圍，即我們其實得接受和記者過去使用的消息來源有關的一些規則。」 |
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