Biography
Erik Martin was the general manager of Reddit in 2013 during the period of the Boston Marathon bombing. After Reddit users on r/findbostonbombers wrongly identified innocent people, including missing student Sunil Tripathi, as bombing suspects, Martin issued a public apology on April 22, 2013, on behalf of the site. He acknowledged that activity on Reddit, though started with noble intentions, had fueled online witch hunts and dangerous speculation with negative consequences for innocent parties, and stated that Reddit had apologized privately to the Tripathi family. The apology is frequently cited as an early example of a major platform formally acknowledging responsibility for harm caused by user-driven misinformation.