Sunil Tripathi was an American student who went missing on March 16, 2013. His disappearance received widespread media attention after he was wrongfully accused on Reddit as a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing. Tripathi had actually been missing for a month prior to the April 15, 2013, bombings. His body was found on April 23, after the actual bombing suspects had been officially identified and apprehended.

Reddit is an American social news aggregation, content rating, and forum social network. Registered users submit content to the site such as links, text posts, images, and videos, which are then voted up or down by other members. Posts are organized by subject into user-created boards called "communities" or "subreddits". Submissions with more upvotes appear towards the top of their subreddit and, if they receive enough upvotes, ultimately on the site's front page. Reddit administrators moderate the communities. Moderation is also conducted by community-specific moderators, who are not Reddit employees. It is operated by Reddit, Inc., based in San Francisco.