Mark Twain is said to have remarked that a lie can travel around the world and back while the truth is still lacing up its boots. In these modern times, of course, a lie can spread just about as fast as a human finger can click “retweet.” And scientists, who can record all of those finger-twitches in real-time, can finally test Twain’s proposition: Do lies really spread faster than truth?
We finally know for sure that lies spread faster than the truth. This might be why.
Definitely yes, according to a new paper from Soroush Vosoughi and Deb Roy of MIT’s Media Lab, and Sinan Aral, a professor at the institute’s Sloan School of Management. In fact, these researchers found, “It took the truth about six times as long as falsehood to reach 1,500 people.” You might comfort yourself that lies and the truth must be the proverbial hare and tortoise, with the lies racing out of the starting gate, and the truth eventually catching up, perhaps? Sadly no, at least not on social media: “Falsehood also reached far more people than the truth.”
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-finally-know-for-sure-that-lies-spread-faster-than-the-truth-this-might-be-why/2018/03/14/92ab1aae-27a6-11e8-bc72-077aa4dab9ef_story.html?utm_term=.76f3c467be58
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