Lampe: After D.C. shooting, misinformation spreads faster than facts on social media

Online speculation and conspiracy theories rapidly spread across social media platforms following the shooting at the White House Correspondents’ dinner. 

University of Michigan School of Information professor Cliff Lampe, an expert on misinformation and online spaces, says users gravitate toward information that reinforces their existing beliefs, creating a swell of speculation that overshadows verified facts. 

“People are reshaping reality based on what they want to be true or not,” he says. “They’re not looking for good information, they’re looking for confirmatory information, and will often go very deep down a rabbit hole of side-by-side pictures, microshots of the president’s face, et cetera.”

As rumors circulated, including false claims about the attacker's identity, motivations, and whether or not the incident was “staged,” Lampe highlighted the difficulty of correcting these errors. 

“Rumor moves very quickly, and then it often takes a very long time to correct those errors,”

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Read “Rumors and Speculation Swirl Online After Shooting at Washington Dinner” at The New York Times. 

Cliff Lampe is a UMSI professor and an associate dean for academic affairs. Learn more about his research on social media by visiting his UMSI faculty profile.