Several times a month I'll receive an email from some well-meaning friend that provides a warning about some new crime technique, virus or government/corporate conspiracy. I'm fairly good at spotting that they're spam and usually can find a link on one of the debunker sites that I can send back to my friend. Some of these rumors have been making the rounds for years and are still going strong.
Couple this longevity with the speed of social media and you have a potent combination with the power to spread disinformation almost instaneously. When US soldiers started vacinating cows in Iraq in 2005, rumors that the US was poisoning livestock to starve the Iraqis garnered substantial support for the insurgents. Other rumors spread via social media have led to riots and the death of innocent bystanders. In response, the US Navy has just awarded a $1.6 million contract to develop a system track and defuse rumors.
The project seeks to develop an app that can be used to report rumors via smartphone. This data will then be analyzed and, if necessary, counter-narratives will be developed. The project team hopes the system will lead to a website that can by accessed by anyone to check any rumor anywhere.
Until that day, though, it's a good idea to monitor your web presence and make sure you're being responsive to complaints and rumors. In this day of instanteous communications, you've only got a short time to realize you have a problem and respond.
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