tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post4858135021598396036..comments2024-02-13T10:20:04.888+00:00Comments on David Hepworth's blog: Thank God there was no Twitter when the last baseless rumours were aroundDavid Hepworthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05973053694541321308noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post-4405785221086422782012-12-12T14:14:00.936+00:002012-12-12T14:14:00.936+00:00"On Twitter people who really ought to know b..."On Twitter people who really ought to know better, and are often familiar with the laws regarding defamation, publish things they would never dream of publishing in a newspaper or on a TV programme."<br /><br />Rory Cellan Jones asks himself before every tweet "Would I say this on Five Live?" Seems so eminently sensible that I'm having it written into the fabric of our (publishing) company's guidance on social media. Gary Parkinsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14975876300557119572noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post-67848639539470568902012-11-11T11:59:26.145+00:002012-11-11T11:59:26.145+00:00The rumours that thrive are the ones that bolster ...The rumours that thrive are the ones that bolster our prejudices and agenda-driven hunches. And so soon after having it confirmed that <i>of course</i> Jimmy Savile was a bad lot, then a rumour that a Tory toff was an amoral bastard who literally shafted the vulnerable seemed to vindicate the kneejerk presuppositions of so many people who don't like this government. <br /><br />Oh, well. One out of two ain't bad.Archie_Vhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04582569974503175543noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post-54456906776795377742012-11-10T01:56:45.358+00:002012-11-10T01:56:45.358+00:00It's a difficult one. Yes, utterly unfounded r...It's a difficult one. Yes, utterly unfounded rumours can clearly spread like wildfire, but I do feel that certain things are inconvenient facts for some - the default position being (rightly) that of Occam's razor. But sometimes, apparently utterly ludicrous, scriptwriter-couldn't-make-it-up events did actually happen.<br /><br />The answer? It depends, I'spose...Douglashttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03345758492182779923noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post-18543420503124711282012-11-09T16:26:05.884+00:002012-11-09T16:26:05.884+00:00The difference is the speed and breadth of spread ...The difference is the speed and breadth of spread of rumour and gossip with the new technology. Also rumours did tend to start from people close to the action and be subject to a certain amount of credibility testing during the retelling. Now any one can sow the seeds of a rumour which is all around the world in minutes without an eyebrow being raisedHuwhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14743262251212584449noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-38548109.post-9496497774557928882012-11-09T08:54:04.920+00:002012-11-09T08:54:04.920+00:00Hmm. Back when this story happened, I was at unive...Hmm. Back when this story happened, I was at university. Without Twitter, without even so much as a Friends Reunited, and without knowing at that time anyone who worked in the media, I heard the same story, and - indeed - the story that this was somehow all linked to the victim's sudden change of mind about standing as a Tory candidate.<br /><br />Likewise, I had been told, definitively, that Jimmy Savile was given keys to the morgue of those hospitals for which he raised money long, long before I'd even seen an AOL CD.<br /><br />I think it's easy to somehow think that because rumours spread on Twitter, they only exist because of Twitter. As a nation, we've always been terrible gossips, and those stories - the presenter who has been using heroin for twenty years but can afford the good stuff so it's not a problem; the Olympian and the newsreader; they had to delay the rescue to move the spouse from the bar-room floor back to the bedroom - never struggled to become "facts" before the net.Simon Hayes Budgenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07084524317888577404noreply@blogger.com