Visualized: Incorrect information travels farther, faster on Twitter than corrections
byCraig SilvermanPublishedMar. 7, 201210:43 amUpdatedMar. 7, 201210:55 am
Many times on Twitter I’ve witnessed what I call The Law of Incorrect Tweets:
Initial, inaccurate information will be retweeted more than any subsequent correction.
The goal should be to make the correction as viral as the mistake. But that’s a challenge, and Tuesday at Harvard’sTruthiness in Digital Media conference, I saw (for the first time) what it looks like when we fail.
The presentation by GiladLotan, the vice president of research and development forSocialFlow, included a chart that compared the Twitter traffic of an incorrect report to the traffic for the ensuing correction. It’s the Law of Incorrect Tweets visualized:
The data for that chart comes from one of threecase studieshe shared inthis blog post. It focused on an incorrect tweet by NBCNew Yorkin November that said the NYPD had ordered its helicopter to move away from the site of the Occupy Wall Street protests:
That report was soon corrected by the NYPD Twitter account:
NBC New York and the main NBC News accounts tweeted out corrections, but, as you can see from Lotan’s chart, the new information did not reach as many people.
“People are much more likely to retweet what they want to be true, their aspirations and values,” Lotanwrote.
He also noted that he has seen corrections beat out incorrect information on Twitter, which is encouraging and suggests my “law” is maleable:
Does misinformation always spread further than the correction? Not necessarily. I’ve seen it go either way. But I can safely say that the more sensationalized a story, the more likely it is to travel far. Many times the story about misinformation is what spreads, rather than the false information itself (for example: theSteve Jobsfalse death tweet which cost Shira Lazar her CBS gig).
If you understand the dynamic, you may be more likely to change it. One cause: Incorrect information is bound to be more provocative and interesting than a correction. The other cause is that too little attention ispaid tomaking corrections on Twitter.
Journalists need to make the effort to contact anyone who retweeted the incorrect information and make them aware of the correction; it also helps to ask them to retweet the correction to their followers. I offerother advice for correcting tweets here.
AP Twitter account hacked, posts false White House scare
Wilson Rothman and Rosa GolijanNBC News
April 23, 2013 at 1:17 PM ET
Following a hack attack, the Associated Press' verified Twitter account posted "an erroneous tweet" claiming that two explosions occurred in the White House and that President Barack Obama is injured. Moments later, the @AP Twitter account — with nearly 2 million followers — was suspended.
Immediately following the false tweet, theDow Industrial Average lost about 140 points. These losses were immediately recovered. (See chart below.)
Following the false @AP tweet, the Dow Industrial Average lost about 140 points. These losses were immediately recovered.
"That's a bogus tweet," an AP spokesperson initially told NBC News, a statement that wasrepeated by the company's corporate communications account. Though the false tweet disappeared, the false message continued to exist on the service in over four thousand retweets.
In a briefing that occurred after the erroneous tweet appeared,White House spokesman Jay Carney told reportersthat "the president is fine, I was just with him." Julie Pace, AP's chief White House correspondent, reiterated during the briefing that "anything that was just sent out about any incident at the White House is actually false."
AP media relations director Paul Colford is quoted, ina blog post, as saying that the company had also suspended other AP Twitter feeds, "out of a sense of caution." He added, "We are working with Twitter to sort this out."
FBI spokesperson Jenny Shearer told CNBC that it is investigating the AP Twitter hack.
A wire statement issued later explained that the mid-day tweet "came after hackers made repeated attempts to steal thepasswordsof AP journalists." A group called the Syrian Electronic Army claimed credit for the hack. The group's original Twitter account is currently suspended, but on Tuesday afternoon, analternate "official" account was live.
Social media accounts associated with CBSNews programs"60 Minutes" and "48 Hours"were compromised on Saturday.The same group, known for its pro-Assad politics,took creditfor that attack too, as well as earlier attacks on the Twitter accounts of NPR and the BBC. The group is not to be confused with the hacking collective known as Anonymous — in fact, they havepreviously clashedonline.
Passwords are weak link
Becausepasswordtheft is the culprit behind social-media account takeovers, security experts say that better
protection is needed. Responsibility for security is shared between the user and the service.
"The challenge (with corporate-owned Twitter accounts) is, we share the password," Chester Wisniewski, senior security advisor at Sophos, told NBC News. "Once you get enough people with the password, bad things are going to happen," he adds. "There's no good way of isolating or limiting access these high-profile accounts."
Wisniewski said it is up to Twitter to strengthen security by using two-factor authentication, a log-in technique used by Google, Apple, Facebook and others that requires the pairing of a password with a code delivered to a user's cellphone.
"In my opinion, this is overdue for Twitter, especially for verified accounts," he said, regarding how incidents like this could be prevented. "Humans are the weakest things when it comes to a phish [attack]."
Twitter sent users a note saying that, "while we investigate (the AP hack), we wanted to get in touch to provide some information to help keep your account secure. And given the recent incidents, it is especially important to be extra vigilant about any attempt to phish your information." The note included a link toa support pagewith basic security precautions.