After being found guilty on 34 counts of falsifying business records on Thursday in a New York criminal trial,
However, the amount of misinformation/disinformation has only reached a fever pitch—and it would seem that many aren't bothering to check what is true, what is speculation and most importantly what is simply wrong. "This is a rich context in which misinformation can occur. One of the factors that can promote misinformation is confusion, and a situation like this where there are no priors is inherently confusing," explained Dr. Cliff Lampe, professor of information and associate dean for academic affairs in the School of Information at the University of Michigan.
"There's quite a bit of research in studies of disasters showing the misinformation can spread very quickly facilitated by social media, and that corrections are slower to catch up and often never replace the original bad information," said Lampe."An outcome like this has many characteristics of a disaster—a surprising event, highly emotional, consequential but in ways that aren't well understood, and technically complicated.