1

SpreadofhoaxinSocialMedia
Areportonempiricalcase

HokkySitungkir
[hs@compsoc.bandungfe.net]
Dept.ComputationalSociology
BandungFeInstitute

Abstract
Wediscussthewayofhoaxspreadingasgossipandrumorthroughoutthesocialmedia,i.e.:Twitter,
by observing an empirical case in Indonesia. We discuss the spreading factor of the gossip in the
social media and see the epidemiology of the propagation hoax before and after the hoax being
clarified in the conventional mass media. The discussions brought us to the open enrchiment
analysis of the sociology of gossip and rumors within the online services like Twitter for future
observationofhumanbehavior.

Keywords:socialmedia,gossip,rumor,hoax,Twitter.

Thereareaterriblelotofliesgoingabouttheworld,
andtheworstofitisthathalfofthemaretrue.
WinstonChurchill

1.Introduction
Togossipishumansocially.Gossipsandrumorshavebeenasortoffunwaytoexploittheexisting
asymmetric information in social life. It has been even recognized as an important thing in the
sustainability and adaptability in social groups throughout the long run of human evolution [1, 12].
Recent modern life has brought us a great deal places for gossips and rumors in the name of
informationexchange.Theroleofsocialmedia,microblogging,socialnetworkserviceshaveplayed
averyimportantroleinthewaywegossip.Yet,thiscustomerdrivenmediaarepronetohoax,lies,
asinformationflowsfrompersontopersonunstoppably.Therehavebeenalotofcasesworldwide
howhoaxesspreadbyridinggossipsandrumorsthroughoutsocialmedia,thehoaxofthedeathof
human rights figure, Nelson Mandela (January, 2011), rock star Mick Jagger (February, 2011), and
the martialart movie actor, Jackie Chan (March, 2011). In the period of the paper is written, the
threeworldfiguresarealiveingoodconditions,yet therumorsontheirdeathhavehitthe worlds
twittertrendingtopics.Recently,inIndonesiasomesimilarthinghasalsobeenoccurred
*)
.Thisisthe
groundonwhichthediscussionofthepaperisestablishedupon.

Gossipsandrumorsspreaduponsocialnetworkwithinthesocialinteractionandcommunications.In
somecases,thespreadingofgossipsandrumorscouldbeseenlikeaninformationepidemiology
diffusinglikeadiseasecontiguouslyfrompeopletopeopleandplacestoplacesovertime[9].Infact,
understandingrumorsandgossipscouldgiveusmoreinsightsontheherdingbehaviorinmarket
[10],andeventheissuerelatedtosocialinfluence[2],beliefs[7],andpoliticalextremism[3].There
havebeensomestudiesonthespreadingofgossipsandrumorswithinsocialnetwork.Mostofthem
havebeenfocusedonthetopologicallandscapeinwhichthegossipsandrumorsarebeingsmeared
[6}.Ithasbeenunderstoodthathumanbehaviorongossipsandrumorsaffectsthestructureofthe
socialnetwork[8].However,thepaperdiscussesthespreadingofgossipsandrumorsuponTwitter,
awideonlinemicrobloggingservices[4].

2.TwitterasMediaforGossipsandRumors
As Twitter has unique community structure [11], the way a rumor or gossip spreads through it has
alsosomepracticaldifferenceswiththosedoesmouthtomouthofconventionalsocialnetwork[5].
Since it is an online service, the diffusion of news is interestingly much fasters spatially and
chronologically.AgossipaboutapublicfigureinIndonesiareachedaboutmorethan50,000readers
as tweeted by 59 social actors within many different cities only for about two hours before it has
beenrecognizedtobeahoax.

Inourcaseofstudy,someonewhodoesnotnecessarilyhavethousandsoftwitterfollowersposted
a question about whether a public figure has been dead, and within minutes it has become a
statementforsympathyandcondolencesformthousandsofpeople.Theshowcasehasshownthata
rumoraboutaparticularpublicfiguredoesnothavetocomefromotherpublicfiguresinordertobe
propagated so vastly in twitter. Definitely, this is a nature why we call Twitter service as social
media.

*)
ForabouttwohoursinMay2
nd
2011,thehoaxofthedeathofYohanesSurya,anotablefigureofphysical
sciences,wascirculatedinTwitternationally.Itwaslaterrecognizedthatthenewshasbeenconfusedtothe
deathoftheIndonesianPelitaHarapanUniversityfigure,JohanesOentoro.However,anationamediahas
revealedthisashoaxandtherumorsweredeclinedintheconventionalmassmedia.URL:
ht t p: / / www. medi ai ndonesi a. com/ r ead/ 2011/ 05/ 05/ 222764/ 293/ 14/ Yohanes- Sur ya- Saya- Sehat - Wal af i at

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3.Theepidemiologyofthehoax
Whenitcomestotheinfluenceofthetweetsregardingtothisissue,wecancalculatehowfarithas
reachedby,showinganagent i spostasretweetedbyagent j
( ) ( ) ( )
i j ij
t ij
N F t F t F t = +

(1)

where ( )
ij
F t is the numbers of followers shared by the both agents over time the round of the
tweets t . And here we can have the figure 3 depicting the impact of any tweets mentioning the
hoax.

Figure3
Thefollowersofthegossipoverthetwohoursthegossipspreadthroughoutthesocialmedia.Theredarrows
showsthetimethecoverofthenationalmediaregardingtothehoax.

Itisapparentthatthenumbersofthefollowersoftheissuewereraisedandbythetimethemedia
covered, the numbers of the followers were damped and diminished abruptly. It is also worth to
notethatwecollect thetweetsaftertheinformationisclearthatitwasactuallyahoax. Itseemed
thatsometweetsweredeletedbytheusersafterthenationalmediademonstratedthatitwasreally
a hoax. It is understandable that some twitter celebrities have moral obligation not to get along
with a fake news, as to the weighing that the issue was extremely sensitive for it was allabout the
lifeofanotablepublicfigure.

Asnotedin[5],wecanmeasuretheeffectivenessofthepropagatedgossipbyasimplespreading
factorof,

N
f
k
= (2)

where
f
n is the number of people who eventually recognize the gossip, and k is the degree to the
victim. In our cases, since the victim a well known public figure, it can be simply understand that
1 k ~ ,thusthespreadingfactorisproportionaltothenumberofpeopleeventuallyknowthegossip.
Thus,thespreadingtimeoverroundsoftweets, t ,canbewrittenasthefunctionofthespreading
oftherumorsviatweets,

log A B N t = + (3)

Obviously, this demonstrated the hypothetical view on how the spreading of gossips and rumors
withinthesocialnetworkfollowstheexponentialgrowthofpopulation,

exp
A
N
B
t | |
=
|
\ .
(4)

asshowninfigure4.

Figure4
ThegrowingnumbersofthepeopleknowsahoaxinTwitterandtheexponential(dashedline)extrapolation

The growing population within the spreading of gossip and rumors shows the coefficient
A 5.6308 = and B 1.28 = with R 0.90068 = . This has similarities with the findings of the
experiment within the AlberBarabasi scale free network [4], demonstrating A =-10.77 and
B =2.433. Hypothetically we can extrapolate the possible spreading rumors otherwise the media
didnotcoverthespreadingnewsasahoax.

Itisalsointerestingtoseetherankingplotofthefollowersoftheagentsspreadingthehoaxthatis
fitted with the power law, the one that reflects the structure of the landscape of the propagation.
Despitethewidespaceofthepropagation,obviouslyonlysmallamountofagentshasthousandsof
followersasshowninfigure5.Thenumberofthefollowersoftheagentsfollows,

( ) r n n
o

(5)

where nistherankofthedescendingfollowersagentsand o denotestheexponentofthepower

law.The calculation demonstrates that the exponent 1.3863 o = , a value that somehow, can be
relatedtothegraphtopologyoftheTwitterasdiscussedin[11].

Twitterhasbeenasocialmediathatcollaborativelymakeitpossiblecreatingcollectiverealityfrom
hoaxes.Theexponentialreachingpointshavesomehowbecomeanalternativetotheconventional
6

media.Yet,theregimeisstillonthesideoftherulingmassmediathatstillgivereliablenewsforthe
community.Thishasbeenshowsbythedampedofthehoaxesasshowninfigure3.

Figure5
Therankoffollowersoftheagentsinourcaseofstudy

4.ClosingRemarks
Informationtechnologyhasgivenmodernpeopletoolsforspreadinggossipsandrumors.Twitter,as
a microblogging service is one of the tool effectively spreading news from person to person in the
speedthatiscomparablewiththeconventionalmassmedia.Ourexposuretoahoaxthatissmeared
among Indonesian Twitter users demonstrated this fact. Thus, the future sociology of gossips and
rumors will put the online services like Twitter into account for further understanding the way
humanbeingsevolve.

Twitter has become a collaborative network of spreading information. The original source (or the
patientzero)doesnotnecessarilyonewithhugeamountoffollowers;thecollaborationmakesthe
information become huge. The hoax that has become the case of study in the paper has shown to
have large population scope in five to six steps of tweeting, and potentially larger exponentially
unlessaconventionalmediastoppedthespreadingofthehoax.

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