Twitter's rumor mill declares Subway's Jared dead

As blogger Louis Gray noted, Twitter killed off Subway spokesperson Jared Fogle yesterday. The story began with Kevin Rose of Digg and Adam Ostrow of Mashable posting a link to the hoax site Jared Remembered. Twitter users that ignored the obvious spoof (requesting donations of low-fat condiment packets to homeless shelters in Fogle's memory), quickly spread the story.

Twitter has gotten a reputation for breaking news stories from the China earthquake last month to the death of Tim Russert two weeks ago. But as commenter rachelcgen on dot.life notes:

"...there's a difference between news, which is usually a more after the fact report with some fact-checking and reflection. Twitter is immediate event reporting from eye-witnesses that reflects their perceptions - which can be wrong."

In the race to be the first in any circle to relay news on a service such as Twitter, details like fact-checking and source verification are often overlooked. While many want to be first, no one wants to be wrong. With the proliferation of hoax sites and recurrent rumors online, news at high speed can be a curse as well as a boon. Next time, before you Twitter it, it may be worth the extra few seconds to double-check a story before hitting send.

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