Emergent is a real-time rumor tracker. The idea is to track rumors, like this one:
Claim: White House fence-jumper made it inside the main floor
Each claim is tagged as confirmed true, confirmed false, or unverified. An interesting experiment.
It’s part of a research project with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University that focuses on how unverified information and rumor are reported in the media. It aims to develop and best practices for debunking misinformation.
You can read more about this research project here.
Its Snopes 2.0.
If we start putting in Apple rumors, it could kill the Internet
Sadly no one gives a rats ass about the veracity of Apple rumors. A few people, including The Loop’s own Shawn King, have tried it in the past. Ask him how well that went.
Yeah – I spent 18 months tracking Apple rumours from all The Usual Suspects and grading them (overall, less than 25% of rumours were accurate and some sites were ridiculously inaccurate and yet quoted over and over again – I’m looking at you, Digitimes). No one in the media cared about the numbers.
People in general and the media specifically seem perfectly OK with not knowing which sources are accurate or caring whether or not what they report is based on facts. Simply because “APPLE!” generates page views.
This is going to cause the Internet to collapse.
That last comment is true. It’s all about page hits. Why let truth get in the way of money. If Gordon Gecko were real and alive today he’d been either a financial analyst spouting made up rumors with specious sources about Apple, a blogger or even both.