WARNING: FALSE Rumors are being started so to Study their creation

[Up2Late]

I know this sounds crazy, and I personally think this is foolish or down right un-ethical, but NPR reported this story this week, that the University of Wyoming is doing a study of false rumors, and will be starting some false rumors in order to study how quickly and by what pathways rumors spread.

My personal feeling is that this is really dangerous and a stupid thing to be doing right now with all the false rumors floating around these days, I mean you would think that they could just study one of those that are already out there.

But hey, this IS coming from the University of Wyoming, the so-called "home state" of out current Vice-President, who we ALL know never speaks about anything but confirmed facts. :sarcasm:

Below is the link to the Audio.

Plumbing the Depths of Rumor Research

Listen to this story...(at link above)

All Things Considered, November 28, 2005 · University of Wyoming professor Martin Bourgeois is one of a group of sociologists who is studying how rumors are spread. Bourgeois discusses the ethics of rumor research nd invites listeners to contribute their own rumors to his research.

<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5029923>

[stepnw1f]

1. Just Study Fox News (nt)

[leftstreet]

2. Yeah, reilly.

Happy Holiday Balls!

[stepnw1f]

4. Holiday Balls That are Appropriately Fragile

How symbolic of Bill's ego.

[MisterP]

14. one's lower than the other, even!

[stepnw1f]

15. hernia....oghhhhhh (nt)

[niallmac]

3. So the rumor that the University of Wyoming spreads lies is not false? nt

[Up2Late]

5. I don't really know, maybe the first rumor they started is that...

...they are going to be starting rumors in order to study that rumor? :shrug:

[hwmnbn]

10. No, the real rumor is that there is....

a university in Wyoming. That is obviously false.

I smell a Cheney in here.

[mzteris]

6. I don't believe this story......

I think it's just a rumor!

:rofl:

[melody]

7. It's just a rumor that they're starting rumors to study rumors

But a rumor isn't necessarily untrue. :+

[mzteris]

12. Really?

I'd heard a rumor about that but didn't know whether to believe it or not.

:shrug:

[grannylib]

8. Just track everything that comes out of the Imbecile's mouth.

I could count on one hand the number of times he's let a truthful statement accidentally slip out.

[rman]

9. The government is being un-ethical on a routine basis.

This might raise awareness of that.

[Igel]

11. Sounds fascinating.

But the groups they introduce rumors to will be told not necessarily to believe them, and will be debriefed afterwards. Some may escape, but there's already enough tripe out there.

And it's not just UW. Also Rochester Institute of Technology.

I'll be interested in seeing how the communities and social networks are constructed: I'd suspect that the properties of the communities influence the kinds of rumors they believe, and wonder how they'll group.

(As far as the ethics, it's risky, actually. In social deviance we read this case study, probably done in the '60s, where a worker volunteered to have the rumor started that he was gay; by the end of the second week or so, almost everybody in the office had reinterpreted things, some from years earlier, to reinforce this rumor. Things he said, had or hadn't done, had worn. It was a false rumor, and no amount of persuasion by the researchers or his friends could dispel the rumor. He eventually quit.)

[tanyev]

13. Falsies now are being tarted up so two can study creation?

That's what the person next to me whispered in my ear.

:+

[Up2Late]

16. kick n/t

:kick: