Dear Readers,

Below are my annotated notes of a talk I gave at Berkman’s Truthiness in Digital Media Symposium a few weeks ago. I introduced the concept of Social Theorems, as a way of formulating the findings of the research that is happening the last few years in the study of Social Media. Continue reading →

The more we use social media, the more seasoned we become at assessing the trustworthiness of information that we come across. With rumors constantly flying around, famous celebrities are often mistaken to be dead, while every little move Apple makes triggers an onslaught of buzz around new product features.

This post details three rumors, each with its own path, source, evolution and outcome. One makes it far, cascading through networks of users, fans and followers who decide to amplify and pass on the message, another makes it far but is found to be false, while the third quickly dies. What can we learn from their differences? How can we improve our ability to recognize a false piece of information in realtime? Continue reading →