Twitter user @ComfortablySmug apologizes for Sandy hoax

Twitter/ComfortablySmug

As Superstorm Sandy was pummeling the U.S. East Coast Monday night, people were sending real-time updates through social media sites, giving observers around the world a window into the chaos. But one man sent out several false breaking news alerts that perpetuated a ripple effect of misinformation.

Twitter user @ComfortablySmug sent out inaccurate tweets of events on the ground in New York City Monday night. But the one that got the most attention was a claim that the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange was under more than 3 feet of water. The claims may not have been initiated by @ComfortablySmug, but the report was re-tweeted several hundred times.

BuzzFeed has reported the identity of @ComfortablySmug as 29-year-old hedge fund analyst Shashank Tripathi.

According to BuzzFeed, Tripathi penned several comments on NYMag.com, and even wrote a candid sex diary entry on the website under the same Twitter handle.

Tripathi was also the campaign manager for Christopher R. Wight, a Republican candidate for New York's 12th Congressional District.

In a tweet posted to his Twitter followers Wednesday, Tripathi apologized for making a series of "irresponsible and inaccurate tweets." He also reported that he has resigned from Wight's campaign.

Read Tripathi's tweets below.

Tripathi has not sent out a tweet since.

[TobyCosplay]

If anyone here goes and checks out Gawker you can see how them calling someone a ***hole while they are being ***holes is okay. The irony is huge and it gets even bigger when they attack people because someone made them look like fools and then they spend the time to look up all the persons info just to personally attack them and cry to the world about it. The news sites that went to that extreme are trolls and now have become laughing stocks of the world because now they are internet memes. When did people using the internet become responsible for what a news site does or reports and when did a news site think it was okay to attack freedom of speech or to go after people on a personal level because they hurt your feelings and make you look like fools. It does not make sense even this page is now considered a internet meme to be joked about for the outragous things the news will do to come after you for playing a joke and then taking it serious and thinking everything on the internet is fact. All these news sites should be saying sorry to the guy for their actions because there is some type of responsibility you guys have to the public but a private person does not on the internet. Its like most of you have just joined the internet today and found that out and want to cry about it when it happens. There was nothing wrong with what the guy did and if you took it seriously like the BUZZ guy and then felt like a fool and spent the time to try and vindicate yourself by attacking the person well no one cares about you and your feelings or that you looked like a fool what they care about is that you went after someone just to make yourselves look better but just instead became trolls.

[LyteWing75]

l disagree with you, Bojax39. He should not be brought up on charges....if you think that then everyone who posts something untrue on the internet should be brought up on charges. No, the real fault here lies with the news outlets that reported this as a fact without verifying the source! It's journalism 101 to only use trusted sources that you can verify and have multiple sources where possible. Everyone should know that you can't take everything you see in the internet as the absolute truth and this certainly applies to random Twitter posts from random people. A major news outlet should certainly know better than this!

[TobyCosplay]

I was surpised that a private citizens comments are somehow suppose to be all factual and that he is suppose to be sorry for using his freedom of speech and thatnews outlets actually went to go find his name for reasons unknown. I wonder if I tell people that the sun is blue that I am suppose to be sorry for that or that someone should need to know my full name instead of my handles for saying it. Also I dont understand what being anonymous had to do with it.

[Bojax39]

"Tripathi apologized for making a series of "irresponsible and inaccurate tweets."

Yeah, but only AFTER Shashank Tripathi had been identified and there was no way to deny what he'd done. This guy should be facing legal action and a permanent ban from Twitter.

The more infantile among us will tie this moron's gross lack of common sense to his Republican affiliations, even though stupidity adheres no particular political orientation. Well, not to anybody who is not an idiot themselves of course.....

[TobyCosplay]

A private citizen should be jailed for saying something and banned from twitter? When did twitter become a reliable place for facts and when did a private citizen with the freedom of speech have to be jailed for saying whatever he wants on his private twitter account? Also why would anyone needed to find out what his name was just because he uses twitter? I have used twitter to say the end of the world has come and that the sun is blue and no one cared at all and some even retweeted what I said and still people did not care because it was not true. So what is going on through your mind of any of these news sites that thought everything on the internet was fact and that a private citizen should be responsible for what they said. What is weird is some how he said something about being anonoymous like that played a part in it or that news sites actually went to find his name for reasons unknown. Please someone anyone point out why a person no matter what they say as a private citizen should be responsible for saying something untrue and what was the purpose in finding out his name and why was it important that he wrote about being anonoymous as if it had something to do with it.