Behind the Alarming Rise of the Online Vigilante Detective

By: Charlie Warzel | BuzzFeed

Citizen journalism was one of the great dreams of the mid-2000s internet. Just as blogs had given anyone with an internet connection and a keyboard a platform, media companies like AOL and CNN hoped that cell phones and high-speed internet would transform an army of private citizens and online hobbyists into freelance, oftentimes pro bono writers, videographers, and reporters.

 

Eight years and countless failed ventures (CNN’s iReport, AOL’s Patch) later, that dream is almost unrecognizable — more powerful, and at times darker, than the seers and corporate executives imagined.