Anatomy of a False Rumor in the Age of Twitter

We had an interesting experience yesterday on Twitter. Around 10 AM my time in Hong Kong, I spotted a story on Twitter referred by some of the early mobilists, relating to a story by the Guardian, by Richard Wray where he wrote "Nokia is understood to be developing".. without citing any sources, and making a very dramatic statement as if Nokia had been involved with a device to use the Google Android operating system (if you missed this rumor, please note, it is totally untrue. Not a single thread of evidence to the story).

Had this been true, it would have been a dramatic shift in the smartphone operating system wars, where Nokia's Symbian has about half of the worldwide market, and currently the next largest OS platforms are RIM/Blackberry, Microsoft Windows Mobile, and the Apple iPhone OS/X. Other makers like Palm and yes Android, have very small market shares today. If Nokia (and thus Symbian) which totally dominates the market, was found indeed to suddenly abandon Symbian and go with the tiny upstart Android, it would have been as if JVC had, after demolishing Betamax video recording system in the market share wars for VCRs, suddenly announced they abandon the global market giant standard they had created, VHS, and rather release recorders on the Philips VC2000 video cassette format (the "flip cassette") which while technically innovative was a miniscule share of VCRs in the early 1980s. Totally bizarre, but indeed would have been giant news.

The Twitter technologist and mobilist contributors seized upon this item of news - the Guardian is a legitimate news source and reputable UK paper usually very good with tech news - and started the speculation rumors. So these had been buzzing around for a while and started to pick up steam around 10M Hong Kong time when I posted my first comment "Rumor is gaining, I still don't buy it (Android NOK phone)". I posted some additoinal comments on Twitter why I thought it was not likely.

Then the Twitter effect part 1 kicked in. The discussion of the original story. People who understand the smartphone OS world much better than I do, started to weigh in. Those who clearly knew what they were talking about came very decisively against this rumor, how devastatingly damaging it would be for Nokia's current strategy and position, and also started to pick apart the Guardian story, having no sources etc. I thought the strange rumor would quickly die. But it didn't.

Its so easy to retweet the story and it had a lot of appeal to many who are not very close to the facts. So the rumor mill on Twitter got hold of the story. The original Guardian article, which by now the "real mobilists" had already all agreed was false, was now being circulated by those who are interested in mobile but who do not really know it deeply. It was a juicy rumor and it was based on a legitimate newspaper story. It had a lot of credibilty (for a rumor).

Several mobile related bloggers (who shall remain nameless, no need to shame them, they were only repeating what had been an erroneous story in the Guardian) started to blog about it. This Twitter effect part 2 fed the flames at Twitter and updates mentioning Nokia and Android were now coming every few minutes. So we got the first voice of sanity from Staska at Unwired View who explained clearly that this rumor was unfounded and had no merit. By my timing this was about 2 hours after the original story broke on Twitter. I (and many others obviously) started to retweet this story by Unwired View and try to bring some sanity to the rampant rumors.

About an hour later we got Stefan Constantinescu's unequivocal rebuke in his story at Into Mobile, where Stefan put it plainly into the headline: "Do not listen to the Guardian, there will be no Nokia devices running Android any time soon." Stefan wrote it would be a cold day in hell, etc. (yes, funny). This should have put an end to the story by now, but it was still morning in Europe and many were Tweeting the original story either as fact "Nokia to switch to Android" or asking about it "could it be true that Nokia.." and linking either to the Guardian original news, or some of the early bloggers who reported on the Guardian. So we also started to see the types of Tweets commenting, "yes its true, because also blogger X is reporting it" where actually all reported stories linked back to the Guardian story and its uncited sources.

I was doing a lot of replies to friends and to followers and to also some random Twitter users, linking now to Stefan's story and saying, is totally untrue, only rumor. Around this time the new Nokia Android search stories were about 70% thinking it is true, and 30% saying its not true. Then about 4 hours into the story, Nokia issued an official denial via Reuters, "Absolutely no truth whatsoever." We started now to retweet this link and put out the rumor.

You would think that would rapidly end the story. It didn't. About 6 hours into the story and 2 hours after Nokia's denial, we saw the peak of the hysteria and Twitter effect 3, as the volume of new Tweets on Nokia Android was several per minute and the mix of new tweets was still 50/50 reporting it as true, and reporting it as having been denied. It would take another 3 more hours before the main buzz would die and the clearly majority reported it as a false rumor and most who did report just the Guardian story or early bloggers on it, would receive immediate replies that this was a rumor already denied.

I don't know what to make of this little storm in a tea cup. It was fascinating to be on Twitter and to see it unfold. It was yes an experiment in how a news story (and in this case story that turned out not to be true) would spread and also how it would evolve. Later we also heard from Steve Litchfield at All About Symbian who explained it rather categorically, and David Meyer at ZD Net jumped in to explain where the likely confusion was, as Nokia does have a strategy for a Linux Open Soure OS around Maemo.

I am disappointed that today, after clearly the Guardian's story has been proven not to be true, they do not update the story online with the comment of the Nokia denial or the rather universal mobilist blogosphere consensus that this is not going to happen. Shouldn't the Guardian correct its own mistake?

I ended up sending hundreds of Twitter comments to those who posted the Guardian story either as true, or asked could it be true, or speculated about it, with links to the stories where it was exposed as not true, and obviously after Nokia issued the denial, always included that link.

Literally, hundreds. Only a handful retweeted the correction to something they had tweeted. I find that disturbing. We are as humans very willing spread a story that appeals to us, but not to follow up with a correction if it proves to be false. Its sad. Also on more a personal side, only a few of those hundreds did get back to me, with discussion, or comment or thanks. And a couple who did (only really a few) said that even after the Nokia denial, they did not believe the rumor was false (what does this tell us about how little we trust major brands anymore in this day and age? Communities dominate brands?)

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