Why the Internet is a false idol

[Commentary] If the Arab Spring realized social media’s civic promise, then the Boston bombings may be the moment that promise evaporated.

By now, we’re only too familiar with the much-analyzed, much-disparaged mistakes the ambiguous “hivemind” made in the wake of the attacks. In a thousand disparate ways, across every available social channel, we all made the same mistake: We believed we were entitled to and could easily possess first-hand knowledge of the Boston tragedy. And we believed our networks, the ones we had come to know and trust, imparted that knowledge. The fact remains that — in the wake of a devastating tragedy, at a moment that should have humbled us — the only thread uniting social media users was our conviction of the Internet’s infallibility.