A Reddit moderator put out an apology to the family of a missing Brown University student who was falsely accused of being one of the Boston marathon bombers.
Sunil Tripathi, a 22-year-old student who was wrongly fingered as one of the suspects, has been missing since March 16 after leaving home without his cell phone and wallet.
The student was linked to the Boston marathon bombing, that left three dead and more than 180 injured, only became connected to the attack after internet sleuths felt that he looked similar to one of the suspects, without any evidence supporting their claims.
'I'd like to extend the deepest apologies to the family of Sunil Tripathi for any part we may have had in relaying what has turned out to be faulty information,' the moderator of the FindBostonBombers subreddit wrote in a statement.
'We cannot begin to know what you're going through and for that we are truly sorry.
'Several users, twitter users, and other sources had heard him identified as the suspect and believed it to be confirmed. We were mistaken.'
The apologies didn't stop there, as Erik Martin, the general manager of Reddit, also sent out an email 'to apologize personally and on behalf of all our employees for...some of the people on our site's role in the spreading of this false idea about Sunny.'
Tragic: Sunil Tripathi, seen here with his mother and sister, has been missing since last month. He left his cell phone and wallet when he walked out the door
Now his family hope that the vicious emails and threats that they have been receiving from would-be internet sleuths can be harnessed into attention to his missing persons case.
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'We find it incredibly unfortunate that media outlets were so quick to jump without checking with authorities, but we hope they use the same energy and intensity they showed in the past 24 hours to really help us find Sunil,' Sangeeta Tripathi, Sunil's sister told Mother Jones.
Search continues: His family now hopes that the internet community will use their efforts to help find Sunil
As the erroneous reports about Tripathi continued to spread online, his family, huddled around their computers in Providence, Rhode Island, felt helpless as Internet users leveled accusation after accusation against their missing relative.
‘Someone will tweet, then retweet, and completely unsubstantiated things can proliferate so rapidly and destructively,’ Sunil's sister Sangeeta Tripathi said in an interview on Friday.
‘Those night hours were horrible.’
'It seems this is just the ugly underbelly of viral social media,' she later told NBC News.
'But a lot of stir can be created through just a complete accusatory and unsubstantiated effort.'
The true suspects- 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan- were identified hours after police released their photos on Thursday evening.
Tamerlan was shot in an altercation with police early Friday morning but actually only died when his brother ran over him in the getaway car.
Dzhokhar was captured by police Friday evening and remains in FBI custody.
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Real suspects: 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (left, in the white cape) and his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan (right in a black hat and glasses) were identified hours after police released their photos on Thursday evening