
Why Rumors Outrace the Truth Online - metermaid
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/30/upshot/its-so-much-more-fun-to-spread-rumors-than-the-truth.html
======
GraffitiTim
False rumors are able to spread throughout a large population before being
debunked. Corrections, however, are only really able to spread to people who
previously saw the rumor. Furthermore, many people who shared the rumor may be
less likely to share the correction, since it makes them look gullible for
sharing the unverified rumor in the first place. So it's much harder for a
correction to spread virally.

If there were a system in place so that false rumors could be debunked in
real-time, in-line (as opposed to using a separate retroactive correction),
they would be less likely to spread as far. The closest thing I can think of
would be something like Genius.

~~~
aestra
Long ago debunked rumors spread just as fast.

When I was in MIDDLE SCHOOL two decades ago there was a rumor spreading around
saying gangs kill people who flash their headlights at cars who drive around
without their lights on at night.

According to Wikipedia it is older than that, it has been around since the
80s[1].

This is completely false and has been debunked for an extremely long time.

However about 6 months ago it was being shared ALL OVER my Facebook feed like
it was new "news." All anyone had to do was take TWO SECONDS to see if what
they were sharing was true or not. That's asking too much. I don't think
anyone cares they are spreading false information.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlight_flashing#Urban_legend](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Headlight_flashing#Urban_legend)

------
tokenadult
There is a lot of reaction to the headline here (hmm, maybe rumors spread
through headlines), but I am curious about a new Web-based service mentioned
in the article text, namely the service called Emergent.

[http://www.emergent.info/](http://www.emergent.info/)

I saw another news report that was mostly but not entirely about Emergent the
other day, and shared that story on my Facebook wall. Evidently the people who
run Emergent are good at press relations.

I post information about things like this on my Facebook wall because I try to
be PREVENTIVE about rumors. I don't want rumors to be circulating among my
friends. Both on Facebook and here on Hacker News, I try to post stories and
articles about truth-finding and rationale thinking and about little known
historical and scientific facts that can be used to examine commonplace
rumors. Some of the postings appear to be ignored, but others appear to have
some uptake and to prevent subsequent belief in the latest rumor going around.
We can all do our part. We can enjoy working proactively to help one another
think better and to know more facts and to practice more thoughtful
examination of rumors.

------
mikestew
Rumors outrace truth, online or not; an observation allegedly made over 100
years ago by Mark Twain long before DARPA got a bright idea about networking:
“A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its
shoes.” [0]

[0] [https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/76-a-lie-can-travel-half-
wa...](https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/76-a-lie-can-travel-half-way-around-
the-world-while)

~~~
tokenadult
_A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its
shoes._

This is a fun saying, and long precedes air travel, but Mark Twain probably
was not the first person to say it. (Professional researchers on quotations
and their transmission say that in English no one is more likely to have a
pithy quotation falsely attributed to him than Mark Twain, so I immediately
looked this up.) The origin of this saying is hard to trace.[1]

[1]
[http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/](http://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/07/13/truth/)

[http://freakonomics.com/2011/04/07/quotes-uncovered-how-
lies...](http://freakonomics.com/2011/04/07/quotes-uncovered-how-lies-travel/)

------
jgalt212
False rumors spread fast because most of them are juicy or salacious. I bet
boring rumors (true of false) don't spread at all.

Try this one on for size:

Dental studies show people who floss regularly have 3% less cavities than
those who don't.

------
leepowers
_For instance, the missing Libyan jetliner story has been shared more than
140,000 times despite being questioned by the respected rumor-tracking website
Snopes ...... the Snopes page on the jetliner story has been shared only 735
times since it was revised to classify the rumor false, a small fraction of
the circulation of articles endorsing the claim._

This example shows the _correction_ for a rumor is much less popular than the
rumor itself. I'm not convinced that his shows that true stories are less
popular or less engaging than rumors. It shows that people are more responsive
to positive claims than negative ones.

A stronger analysis would look at the top 100 shared/liked stories in a
timeframe. Then determine the ratio of rumor to fact amongst this set of
stories.

Something else to consider: I read the article and did not question the
factual basis of the claims made. Even gave it an uptick on HN. But I didn't
check the sources, even though they are conveniently linked throughout the
article. As far as I can tell, this makes me no different than the fella on
Facebook who likes a story without checking it out. I'm doing as much work as
he is. Right-leaning conspiracy theories feel right to him. Systemic cognitive
biases that effect the masses (but surely not me!) feel right to me.

------
davidcbc
It seems to me that the obvious answer to the question of why rumors are
spread more than truth is that spreading truth requires using enough effort to
discover the truth and spreading rumors requires no such effort.

It takes someone two seconds to click share on some garbage article, it takes
another person a minute or two of Googling to see if something is true or not.
Laziness is going to win out with more people than effort.

~~~
drcube
Not only does fact-checking take longer than blindly clicking "share", fact
checkers are vastly outnumbered by blind-sharers. Of course the former is
probably a big influence on the latter.

One of the things that really impresses me about Facebook lately is how often
the first "suggested article" link under a bogus story is another story
debunking it. If only more people paid attention...

~~~
eric_h
> One of the things that really impresses me about Facebook lately is how
> often the first "suggested article" link under a bogus story is another
> story debunking it

I feel like Facebook should improve their related links system to inform a
poster about them _before_ they post.

