Constructs of Control- Circular reporting
“Circular reporting, or false confirmation, is a situation where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in reality comes from single source. Mostly, the problem happens mistakenly through sloppy intelligence-gathering practices. However, at other times the report is planted by ,malafide agent as a way of reinforcing the widespread belief in its information” (source, Wikipedia)
Have you ever caught yourself in a situation where you are arguing with someone having full confidence in a false belief, while the source of that belief itself is questionable?
There have been events on twitter where hashtags over hashtags and campaigns have run over an initial post, which is later retracted or simply deleted. (Capitol raid, kangana ranaut anyone?)
As one reddit user defines it beautifully here :
This has been one overused technique from the book of propaganda- with a simple motive: Tell a version of lies so many times, via different sources, in different flavors, so you can at least confuse the masses into believing that there “must” be some truth to it.
For instance,
- A random user tweets some random stuff
2. A news outlet picks it up from twitter and publishes
3. Twitter frenzies over new found legitimacy, reposts happen
4. Multiple outlets pick this up, the mania continues
5. Original post gets deleted. Wildfire still burns
Wikipedia is sometimes criticized for being used as a source of circular reporting, particularly a variant where an unsourced claim in a Wikipedia article is repeated by a reliable source, citing the article; which is then added as a source to the initial claim
It’s necessary in the age of information warfare to be aware and vocal about such fallacies in reporting structures. The answer to misinformation is calling out the mala fide agents and keeping a room of error for better judgement. We, at Xcerpt are committed to help our community to weed out such rampant misinformation and streamline the flow of trusted, validated news.
