Internet Sleuths and their Impacts
Flowers left for a makeshift memorial sit at the site of a quadruple murder on January 3, 2023 in Moscow, Idaho. A suspect has been arrested for the murders of the four University of Idaho students. (Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images)
It started in the early morning hours of Nov. 13, 2022. As the sun began its ascent into the sky above Moscow, Idaho, a grisly discovery was made: four students at the University of Idaho had been brutally murdered in their home near the campus. With no clear explanations available, the entire affair was steeped in mystery, resulting in a bizarre internet frenzy. Theories ran abound on virtually every social media platform, leaving law enforcement struggling to keep the misinformation under control.
When it comes to sensationalized violence, incidents like these are hardly shocking. After all, true crime has always compelled public interest, with roots tracing back to the 16th century. Back then, the means of communication were pamphlets, which grossly detailed brutal murders for public consumption. Nowadays, social media’s interconnectedness makes it a better medium, and has cultivated a new breed of interested party: the internet sleuths.
The term “internet sleuth” seems to be associated with certain stereotypes. Upon initially hearing this phrase, I pictured a jittery, frenzied individual with unkempt hair and a caffeine addiction, gesturing wildly at a bulletin board cluttered with conspiracy theories. While that can be true in some cases, a good amount of internet sleuthing seems to happen over social media sites like TikTok and Reddit. The presentation of the sleuth varies based on the case, from brightly attractive personalities voicing opinions on ongoing investigations to nameless, faceless entities calmly defaming bystanders. They’ve all got one thing in common, however: an unhealthy, often obsessive fascination with violent crime and its victims.
For many internet sleuths, true crime crosses the bridge between concern and entertainment. The stories are no longer about anger and grief, instead, there’s an excitement to learn more of the gory details. One interviewee in a documentary about a murder case seemed to let this true desire slip when she stated a need for the case to get more absurd, stating “it has to get crazier.” More and more, true crime stories are sensationalized, twisted to the point where the grieving family is forgotten and the lurid details are all that matter. The loss of humanity only fuels web sleuth activity, compelling them to treat real investigations as games.
For others, though, a personal obsession with those involved proves to be a potent motivator. Take James Renner, for instance. An internet-detective slash real-journalist-turned-author, Renner took it upon himself to attempt to solve the 2004 disappearance of University of Massachusetts student Maura Murray, dedicating years to researching the case and interviewing those involved. His writing betrays an unusual connection to missing people; one passage from his book claims he was “in love” with a 10-year-old murder victim he learned about, Amy Mihaljevic. Renner is hardly the first web sleuth to cross boundaries with victims, but he is indicative of a major problem in the development of parasocial relationships, or one-sided media-based relationships, with victims. And though these obsessions can bring extra resources to law enforcement, they can do plenty of harm as well.
A good example of sleuthing hindering investigations lies in the University of Idaho case. Moscow Police were bombarded with so much false information from social media users over the course of their work that they needed to set up “Rumor Control” on their website to combat misconceptions about the murders. Accusations ran rampant, to the point where a TikTok user blamed an Idaho professor for committing the murders based on tarot readings and had a defamation suit filed against her. Incidents like these are not isolated to Idaho; disturbing patterns of doxing–private information publication–emerge when investigations get too viral. One individual, who was falsely accused by internet detectives of being linked to the 2017 Unite the Right March in Charlottesville, had his address leaked online. Similar events followed the Boston Marathon bombing, as social media users raced to identify the culprits and steamrolled innocent individuals in the process. One particularly heinous example was the accusations against Sunil Tripathi, a Brown student who had gone missing. While his family searched desperately for their son, Reddit users decided that he was a suspect in the bombings and began sending death threats to his grieving family. Tripathi, it was later discovered, had committed suicide.
The treatment of Tripathi’s family and other Internet suspects was horrific, and yet there were no consequences to be had. This is one of the most dangerous aspects of internet sleuthing: major damage can be done, but despite it all, there’s no accountability.
There’s an obvious benefit to internet sleuthing, however. When cases go viral, they can glean new information much faster than any normal police force through sheer manpower. The Gabby Petito story is evidence of this. Petito, a 22-year-old who disappeared while documenting a cross-country trip with her fiance Brian Laundrie, piqued the interest of social media users nationwide. The details surrounding the case, including her last known location in Grand Teton National Park, became widely publicized, to the point where a couple who had been filming vlogs in the area realized they’d captured video of Laundrie’s van. This discovery helped investigators narrow their search, ultimately leading to Petito’s remains being found not far from the video’s location. Despite the obvious benefits of the internet here, much of the positive impact was overshadowed by a vast amount of misinformation spread about Petito’s disappearance. Countless individuals claimed to have seen Petito and peddled rumors that convoluted the public perception of the case, so much so that the police were wary to investigate the few accurate leads they had.
Another oft-criticized aspect of internet sleuth behavior comes in the form of victim demographics. While people go missing every day, only some of these people manage to obtain constant internet and media coverage. Studies show that the disappearances of white individuals are far more likely to make the news than that of people of color, something that led to the coining of the phrase “missing white woman syndrome.” This term refers to the predominance of reporting on white female disappearances compared to the demographic makeup of disappearances, with white individuals making up 70% of missing person stories in the news despite making up less than 50% of all cases. The impacts of this misrepresentation are dire for missing women of color. When stories of missing white women go viral, pressure is placed on law enforcement to go above and beyond to solve those cases, and news forums spread their information nationwide. However, the dominance of these stories in social media prevents the amplification of stories about missing women of color, who already receive disproportionate police investigations. As a result, internalized bias can make internet sleuthing not only dangerous in the cases they fixate on, but the ones they ignore as well.
Internet sleuthing, resulting from crime sensationalism, is clearly blurring the line between reality and entertainment. It presents dangers to the progression of investigations, causing tip lines to overflow and false information to overtake the truth. Additionally, it amplifies biases to the fullest and can’t be regulated. We need to take a step back, as a society, and reevaluate our true crime fanaticism. It’s good to be informed, but not at the expense of berating law enforcement along with the families of victims.