How false news can spread - Noah Tavlin

There's a quote usually attributed
to the writer Mark Twain that goes,

"A lie can travel
half way around the world

while the truth is putting on its shoes."

Funny thing about that.

There's reason to doubt
that Mark Twain ever said this at all,

thus, ironically, proving the point.

And today, the quote, whoever said it,
is truer than ever before.

In previous decades,
most media with global reach

consisted of several
major newspapers and networks

which had the resources
to gather information directly.

Outlets like Reuters
and the Associated Press

that aggregate or rereport stories
were relatively rare compared to today.

The speed with which
information spreads now

has created the ideal conditions for
a phenomenon known as circular reporting.

This is when publication A
publishes misinformation,

Publication B reprints it,

and publication A then cites B
as the source for the information.

It's also considered a form
of circular reporting

when multiple publications report

on the same initial piece
of false information,

which then appears to another author as
having been verified by multiple sources.

For instance