From Poynter
Hackers associated with the group Anonymous have been helping to spread information about the horrific alleged rape that occurred in Steubenville, Ohio, last summer. And they’ve made it clear that they don’t think the case is being taken seriously enough. One of them tells Daily Beast reporter Winston Ross that if two members of the high school football team accused of the crime aren’t convicted, “we won’t hunt them down in a physical sense—no pitchforks.” But, he said, “I know we could make their lives very difficult.”
The role Anonymous “now plays in this case is certainly hard to reconcile, morally,” Amanda Marcotte writes in Slate. The group “has been vital in getting out at least some of the evidence of the assault to the media,” Marcotte writes, by digging up online information about people it suspects are involved in the crime. Part of the challenge for journalists is figuring out how much of the information to use, and how much of it is accurate.
