Why Rumors Outrace the Truth Online

It’s no surprise that interesting and unusual claims are often the most widely circulated articles on social media. Who wants to share boring stuff? The problem, however, is that the spread of rumors, misinformation and unverified claims can overwhelm any effort to set the record straight. Everyone knows there is dubious information online, of course, but estimating the magnitude of the problem has been difficult until now. To see just how these false and unverified claims are shared, Craig Silverman, a journalist and fellow at the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, has developed Emergent, a tool that tracks the dissemination of rumors online.