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If There Is One Lesson To Be Learned from the Last Few Weeks of the Internet, It's 'Don't Meticulously Craft an Online Persona of Being a Total Asshole'

Gawker · 11/01/12 11:38AM

No one mourns a troll. This is the thing about Shashank Tripathi, the anonymous Twitter user outed by Buzzfeed's Jack Stuef on Tuesday morning after a night creating and spreading false rumors on Twitter. I tend to agree with Heidi Moore: the responsibility for the dissemination of those rumors lies with the journalists who retweeted or reported them, not with Tripathi, who has no personal or professional obligation to tell the truth on Twitter, no matter how influential his followers are. A lot of journalists and outlets reported false things on Monday, including CNN and Reuters* and Andrew Kaczynski, the Buzzfeed writer who initially called Tripathi out. Tripathi never claimed to be a journalist or a credible source; in fact, he was always clear that he was the opposite: a troll.