Reddit's 'Find Boston Bombers' Founder Says 'It Was a Disaster' but 'Incredible'

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There's no way around it: As well-intentioned as Reddit's power sleuthers may have been in their desperate, amateur efforts last week to track down the Boston Marathon bombers, they failed. And, yes, even the user behind the subreddit followed 'round the world is now admitting, in an interview with The Atlantic Wire, that his communal photo hunt was "doomed from the start" — while somewhat distancing his fellow Redditors from the media debacle they may have fostered, and taking "some responsibility for speculating about the possibility" that at least one suspect was someone he was not.

It seemed like a good idea at the time: get people who spend the majority of their time on the Internet to help with . But /r/findbostonbombers — the page that vanished from the user-powered site this weekend almost as suddenly as Reddit became), including one in all caps: DO NOT POST PERSONAL INFORMATION. And while it helped shed light on as of its photo release Thursday night — a photo that — the Reddit page that was so closely watched by reporters and social media users that it sparked digital witch hunts of innocent people.