[bnralt]

It's interesting comparing the relatively calm discussion here to Reddit being down for hours (and still down as I type this) to the hyperbolic comments people were making about the death of Twitter when Twitter briefly had some issues the other day[1] (the site wasn't down but had some issues, and they were resolved in less than an hour).

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35043433

[kredd]

Reddit isn't really used as "defacto source of breaking news". I mean, local subreddits and other things stiff get prompt information, but it doesn't get as much wide coverage as Twitter.

[RosanaAnaDana]

Well it was for a while. Then they got someone killed during the whole Boston thing. So you know, theres that..

[Mojave3]

What? They didn't get anyone killed.

[wlonkly]

Sunil Tripathi committed suicide, and while missing was named as one of the Boston bombers by a bunch of Reddit detectives leading to harrassment of his family, but I don't think the suicide was a result of being misidentified.

I think that's where the GP's mistake originated, though, since there was a public misidentification of someone who committed suicide.

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Suicide_of_Sunil_Tripathi

[marcellus23]

Reddit was never on the level of Twitter in terms of real-time news relevancy. Tweets are broadcast on television and used as sources for news stories constantly.

[tshaddox]

Reddit also wasn’t just the subject of a ton of understandable attention and skepticism about how the site would continue to operate.

[midoridensha]

Would the world care if HN died suddenly? Almost no one would even notice.

Reddit is really little different from HN; it's just bigger.