Vancouver rioters identified, shamed through Facebook and websites

Guardian
Several websites and Facebook groups aimed at identifying and punishing people who rioted in Vancouver after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup Finals have spurred questions about whether such sites are a blueprint for “crowdsourced justice.” The Guardian reports that people identified in photos and videos have been “deluged by hate calls and threats” and fired from their jobs. Jeromie Williams, who runs one of the websites, told the Guardian, “After what happened this is a litmus test for events around the world … where people are caught on camera. I think we are in the position to lead the charge in encouraging people not to do these kind of things.” Alexandra Samuel, who runs a media center at Emily Carr University of Art and Design, said she’s worried that the model could catch on: “The way that the Internet works in creating models that are reproduced, well, it just makes you shudder what it could be used for.”