Giving military "intel" from 4chan is absolutely insane. These were the same people that thought they'd conclusively identified the Boston Marathon bomber, but were totally wrong.
This is true. I remember firsthand the #scanner hashtag on Twitter and various re-streamers broadcasting the scanner online, as CNN and other outlets were trying to confirm facts and keep up coverage.
It was a surreal experience, and it showed both the strengths and weaknesses of crowdsourced tweets as "news". You get a lot of info, about how people think and feel but the facts being thrown about can be faulty and need to be confirmed independently. It wasn't until the unfortunate events in Ferguson a year and a half later than a similar kind and intensity of social media coverage ensued.
It's not like they could send UAVs to verify if the claims are legit? It's literally written on the screenshot that the Russians sent drones; and Ivan is obviously a Russian intelligence officer. Breathe!
Russians have demonstrated time and time again they will shoot first and ask questions later, and many times they don't even bother asking questions.
US intelligence is not always as rigorous, either, don't get me wrong, but the Russians in Syria seem to have very loose definitions of what qualifies as a target.
[1] http://wayback.archive-it.org/3649/20130422194045/http://www...