A butterfly flaps its wings, blows up a rumour

[...]social media whipped an extreme rumour around town like a wind whipping a wildfire -- that people had been killed, that the axe-wielding individual was still at large and running amok. To make a long story short, over the course of two weeks, this observation had grown into a roiling story of a...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published inDaily Townsman
Main Author Coulter, Barry
Format Newspaper Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Cranbrook, B.C Postmedia Network Inc 01.02.2018
Subjects
Serial murders
Social networks
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

More Information
Summary:[...]social media whipped an extreme rumour around town like a wind whipping a wildfire -- that people had been killed, that the axe-wielding individual was still at large and running amok. To make a long story short, over the course of two weeks, this observation had grown into a roiling story of a serial killer on the loose and a police cover-up. [...]despite the on-going communications revolution of the past 20 years, whenever we humans band together in communities, our favored mode of information sharing still seems to be the game of whispering something into the ear of our neighbour, who then whispers it into the ear of their neighbour, and so on, until several transmissions later the original message has been transformed into something quite different. [...]again, while modern communications technologies like social media can shift this process into warp speed, it can correct it just as fast.