Two hours after the front-runners completed the 2013 Boston Marathon, two homemade bombs exploded near the finish line, killing three people and injuring 264 others. Within days, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released photographs and surveillance videos of two suspects.
The suspects were swiftly identified, in part through a massive, worldwide dissemination of information and photos. Social media sites Twitter, Facebook and others were all credited with helping to identify the Chechen brothers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Within days, one brother was killed in a shootout with police, and the other was captured and charged. Social media was lauded for its ability to aid the government - and condemned for vigilantism, misinformation and wrongfully targeting innocent parties.
Share