(Andy Carvin, NPR's senior strategist for social media, sends us this dispatch about a Twitter account that may hold clues in understanding the surviving Boston bombing suspect.)
Social media became a large part of the story last week as amateur sleuths scoured the Internet for clues about the Boston Marathon bombing suspects. After several fake Twitter accounts supposedly connected with the suspects were discounted, NPR and other news organizations identified one account, @J_tsar, as being connected with the surviving bombing suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He followed less than 100 people on Twitter, and one of the most recent accounts he followed is one called @Al_FirdausiA. In fact, Tsarnaev was the first to follow that account, which in the Twitter world usually signals a strong personal connection. Using a Storify, we detailed the connections and possible significance of the account:
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