After admitting that he regretted his decision to start a Reddit page to find the Boston Bomber and facing a barrage of criticism, redditor Oops777 has deleted his account on the site.
His apparent departure -- nothing is stopping Oops from grabbing a new user name -- follows Reddit's official apology on Monday for the FindBostonBombers page, which essentially accused a lot of innocent bystanders of being terrorists -- and posted their photos.
In a Reddit AMA (Ask Me Anything) Oops777 spoke about the fiasco, taking questions from fellow reddit users in a thread called "I am the guy that created the controversial and since deleted /r/findbostonbombers AMA." He deleted his account following the AMA.
Redditors were not kind:
Many redditors wondered if Oops77 feared a lawsuit, an idea that Oops777 adamantly dismissed:
Firstly I never said anyone was the bomber, and I just created the subreddit - it would be like suing the Reddit founders for something posted on here. Even if I outright called someone the bomber, that would never ever hold up.
What is most remarkable about the AMA is how readily Oops777 admits that he regrets his decision to create the subreddit. He says that he originally created the page "to consolidate the already existing posts floating around /r/news and /r/boston," obviously not realizing what a stir the subreddit would cause. When asked if it was worth it, he responded: "Not even slightly."
In an interview with the Atlantic Wire, Oops777 spoke in depth about his actions and the way Reddit is perceived nationally: "Reddit shouldn't be grouped into the same category as media outlets. When someone on Reddit says something is suspicious, it's no different from someone on the street saying it. There's a big difference between journalistic integrity and the opinion of some guy on Reddit." Read the entire interview at the Atlantic Wire.
Oops did not address the origin of his moniker nor acknowledge how appropriate the name "oops" seems to be in this instance.
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