Rumor control center
The examples and perspective in this article may not represent a worldwide view of the subject. (October 2018) |
Rumor control centers (RCC) and
The well-developed crisis control centers established during the Cold War were among the earlier examples of effective rumor control mechanisms.[1] In the United States, during the civil rights movement, rumor control centers were set up and operated with the assistance of the Community Relations Service (CRS),[2] a "peacemaker" agency created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Rumor control centers have been established in the United States at different levels of governance, including municipal, regional, state-wide and national. Permanent rumor control centers serve a specific, local population, and have often been set up in response to specific incidents.
Overview
According to a 2004 article by Heidi Burgess and Michelle Maiese, rumors—"knowledge gaps" with "serious inaccuracies" or "misinformation—can drive the cycle of destructive escalation" and contribute to making situations more disruptive.[1] These rumors can be spread "through the mass media—television, radio, newspapers, and the Internet."[1] First, Brugess and Maisse list three phases of a rumor control process. The first step requires a mechanism through which trusted, trained "rumor agents"—usually those experienced and active in conflict resolution—identify the most recent rumors in circulation.[1] The second step requires a strategy for establishing the truth and/or falsehood of the rumors. These "rumor investigators" may also be rumor reporters. Thirdly, there is a need for mechanisms whereby the inaccurate reports can be replaced with reliable information.[1]
The
Since 2007,
Natural disasters
FEMA created the Hurricane Florence Rumor Control and the Hurricane Michael Rumor Control centers in response to the rumors surrounding Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Michael.[8]
Historical context
Cold War
Brugess and Maisse described the
U.S. civil rights movement
Rumor control centers were established during the civil rights movement in the United States using Community Relations Service (CRS) mediators, who provided reliable telephone numbers, (early call centers), where new rumors could be reported, assessed and the results of the assessment accessed.[2][11] The trusted rumor agents were either CRS, police departments, city officials, or "people with authority."[2] In a 1999 interview, Manuel Salinas, who served as mediator for CRS from 1968 to 1988,[Notes 3] said,[2]
[I]f people heard of something, the community could call that number and say, "Hey we heard that fifty cars are coming down the highway," and we would verify that and say "yes" or "no". So rumor control involved getting as accurate information as possible, so that if anybody would call we could convey the correct information. Because rumors begin when you have something like that and they are way off the wall, but the person doesn't know that until you try to find out if it's true or not. The press might call, too. So that's what rumor control was about.
— Manuel Salinas. Community Relations Service (1999)
The first rumor center in the United States was established in July 1967 by the City of Chicago.[12]: 57 "An office was equipped with a radio, television and type-writer, and a large map of the city hung on one of the walls. Ten telephone lines were also installed, including direct lines to the Police Department and Mayor's Office. Local government officials encouraged citizens to call the Center if they heard a "rumor"—defined as information unverified by official sources—that suggested social tensions in the city were increasing.[12]: 57 The Seattle Rumor Center was established by the "citizen-directed" State Council of Churches, in response to the rise of racial tension in 1968. The Rumor Center was operated "to stop the spread of rumors that might cause tension, panic or bring harm to an individual or group of persons, particularly in situations involving race relations." The Center closed in 1973 "because the need had changed and government agencies had developed methods for dealing with rumor control."[13][14]
By the end of the 1960s, a hundred cities across the United States had established RCCs.[12][15] Local government, the private sector, and volunteers funded and operated the RCCs.[12]: 57 [15]
Niger uranium forgeries
On the eve of the
United States
The United States Community Relations Service (part of the Department of Justice) uses rumor control teams when mediating domestic racial conflicts.[1]
Background
The Community Relations Service (CRS) was created by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 as a "peacemaker" to respond to potential ethnic or racial disputes that might result from the Act.[16][17][18][19][20] Among other things, the CRS, "worked with law enforcement, city officials, and community members to establish rumor control mechanisms to prevent the spread of false and inflammatory information."[17]
Heidi Burgess and Guy Burgess, directors and founders of the
U.S. rumor control centers
The U.S. had rumor control agencies at the national, state, regional, county, and municipal levels.
National
According to their report, the CRS collaborates with individual states, local government agencies, public and private entities, and community organizations to "develop local capacity to prevent racial and ethnic tensions." CRS conciliators initiate "rumor control to prevent misinformation from spreading throughout a community".[23]: 3 The DOJ says that the CRS continues to work with officials at the municipal and state level, including law enforcement, and community organizers to help coordinate "safe marches and protests through rumor control mechanisms, self-marshal training, logistical planning, and on-site mediation services".[24]
In his book describing the CRS history from 1964 to 1989, Bertram J. Levine described how a Rumor Control Center was set up in preparation for the May Day 1970 massive protest of the
In 2009, after the passage of the
The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency created a Rumor Control website to combat misinformation about the November 2020 election.[32][33]
State
The Iowa Department of Homeland Security has public emergency information distribution plans which include rumor control centers [34]
Municipal and regional
The city of
Alachua County, Florida, has a Rumor Control Center which was activated in 1990, after the serial murders of five local college students [1].
The City of Coral Springs, Florida, maintains a Rumor Central page.[37][38][39][40]
COVID-19
Several federal and state rumor control web sites were launched in 2020 to combat
Rumor control and social media
Rumor control strategies
By 2013, research rumor spreading and control was often based on models used in epidemiology, such as SI (susceptible (S), infected (I)), SIR (susceptible (S), infected (I), resistant (R)) models, and more recently, the SEIR model which includes "the flows of people between four states: susceptible (S), exposed (E), infected (I), and resistant (R)".[46][47][48]
Notes
- ^ Owen noted that "truth" and real news included stories that "had been fact-checked by outlets like Snopes and PolitiFact".
- ^ For example, the Coral Springs Police Facebook page has a warning entitled "Rumor Control" in which they provide a statement contextualizing an October 18, 2018 incident at the Coral Square Mall involving a 14-year-old girl.
- ^ Manuel Salinas—prior to his 20 years as mediator with CRS (1968 - 1988)—was the state of Colorado's director of Service, Employment and Rehabilitation (SER), a jobs program that was part of the "war on poverty".
- ^ According to Vosoughi et al, "A rumor cascade begins on Twitter when a user makes an assertion about a topic in a tweet, which could include written text, photos, or links to articles online. Others then propagate the rumor by retweeting it. A rumor’s diffusion process can be characterized as having one or more cascades, which we define as instances of a rumor-spreading pattern that exhibit an unbroken retweet chain with a common, singular origin." The researchers noted that not all rumor cascades contain misinformation.
References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k Burgess, Heidi; Maiese, Michelle (August 2004). "Why is Rumor Control Important?". Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base Project. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- ^ a b c d Salinas, Manuel (July 26, 1999). "How did you control rumors?". Civil Rights Mediation, via Conflict Information Consortium (CIS), University of Colorado. Interviews on controlling rumors. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- ^ S2CID 4549072.
- Nieman Foundation. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- CNNMoney. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
- ^ "Clamping down on viral fake news, Facebook partners with sites like Snopes and adds new user reporting". Nieman Foundation for Journalism. Retrieved January 17, 2017.
- ^ Chowdhry, Amit. "Facebook Launches A New Tool That Combats Fake News". Forbes.
- ^ Hurricane Florence Rumor Control 10/19/2018
- ^ a b Pierre, Andrew J. (June 1, 1985). "Review of William L. Ury's "Beyond the Hotline"". Capsule Review. Foreign Affairs. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
This is a quick-read version of a 1984 report to the U.S. Arms Control & Disarmament Agency from the Nuclear Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School. It calls for moving beyond the present "hotline" between Moscow and Washington to a crisis control center jointly staffed by U.S. and Soviet military and diplomatic officers.
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(help) - ISBN 978-0140088632.
- ^ Salinas, Manuel (1980). "How did you control rumors?". Civil Rights Mediation via Conflict Information Consortium (CIS), University of Colorado. Conflict Management Initiatives. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- ^ .
Examined "the emergence of Rumor Control Centers (RCCs) across the US in the 1960s. There are a number of contemporary corollaries of RCCs in operation today.
- ^ "Seattle Rumor Center records, 1968-1973". Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- ^ Dornfeld, Ann (January 10, 2018). "Seattle officials feared these rumors would start race riots". Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- ^ S2CID 146289397.
- ^ ISBN 978-0826215581.
- ^ a b "Police-Community Conflicts". Community Relations Service. Washington, DC: United States Department of Justice (DOJ). nd. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- ISBN 978-0313243325.
- ^ Berkowitz, Steve; Asher, Mark (January 15, 1994). "BCA Delays Boycott; Justice Department Offers to Mediate". Washington Post. Archived from the original on April 14, 2016. Retrieved June 4, 2013 – via HighBeam Research.
- ^ Furst, Randy (July 22, 2008). "Republican National Convention; Justice Department unit reaches out to police, protesters". Star Tribune. Archived from the original on May 5, 2016. Retrieved June 4, 2013 – via HighBeam Research.
- ^ "Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base Project". December 7, 2016.
- doi:10.1002/crq.165.
- ^ "Community Relations Service" (PDF). FY 2013 Performance Budget Congressional Submission. U.S. Department of Justice. January 7, 2014. p. 31. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- ^ "Municipalities and Federal and State Agencies". November 12, 2015. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- ^ "Hoover and the F.B.I." Luna Ray Films, LLC. PBS.org. Retrieved January 24, 2013.
- ProQuest 147638465.
- ProQuest 532216174.
- ^ Brumfield, Dale (June 7, 2013). "The Facts Were Immaterial: The 'counterintelligence' operations of Hoover's FBI included harassment, vilification, violence – and fake 'underground' newspapers in Bloomington, D.C., and Austin". Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- ^ "Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Act passes Congress, finally". Mercury News. October 25, 2009. Archived from the original on October 3, 2013.
- ^ "Obama Signs Hate Crimes Bill". The New York Times. October 28, 2009. Retrieved September 29, 2013.
- ^ U.S. Department of Justice Community Relations Service Government Relations. Washington, D.C.
- ^ Courtney, Shaun; Sebenius, Alyza; Wadhams, Nick (November 12, 2020). "Turmoil Hits Cyber Agency Engaged in Election as Staff Leave". Bloomberg News. Retrieved November 18, 2020.
- ^ Correra, Gordon (November 18, 2020). "Chris Krebs is gone but his firing may not be the last". BBC News. Retrieved November 18, 2020.
- ^ "Annex D". iowahomelandsecurity.org. Archived from the original (DOC) on September 29, 2007. Retrieved January 3, 2024.
- ^ "Rumor Control Center". June 22, 2023.
- ^ "Rumor Control". NPR. a discussion with the director of Baltimore's Rumor Control Center
- ^ "Sculpture or Sample: Public Art Committee seeks feedback on artworks". Newsletter. Coral Springs, Florida: Coral Springs. 2008. Retrieved October 21, 2018. In 2007, for example, the City clarified that a public art sculpture entitled Rotate, was not "missing or stolen, it had been temporarily moved during a "silver guitar player's" performance.
- ^ Marr, Madeleine (October 19, 2018). "Caught on video: A teenage girl being punched by a cop at Coral Square Mall". Retrieved October 21, 2018.
- Coral Square Mallon October 18, 2018 involving a 14-year-old girl.
- ^ "Statement". Coral Springs Police Department via Facebook. Rumor control. Archived from the original on February 26, 2022.
- ^ https://www.defense.gov/Explore/Spotlight/Coronavirus/Rumor-Control/ Coronavirus: Rumor Control] - United States Department of Defense
- ^ Rumor control - coronavirus.gov
- ^ Coronavirus Rumor Control - Federal Emergency Management Agency
- ^ Maryland Coronavirus (COVID-19) Rumor Control
- ISBN 9783319190037.
- ^ Nesse, Hans. "SEIR Model". Global Health. Tempe, Arizona.
- ISBN 978-3-319-19002-0.
- ISBN 9781450322409.