An Experiment in Misinformation

This article chronicles the public side of one of our recent experiments in misinformation. We don't expect to release the full results for some time, now, but as many of you have been asking us whether we were involved in the incident at the university in Ottawa we will take some time now to explain what we can.

The experiment was designed to test how viable different methods for spreading misinformation were, relative to each other. We used word of mouth with trusted and untrusted sources, print media, the Internet (youtube, blogs, and advertisements), and many other sources. The scientists among you will certainly be asking how we kept all of the variables controlled. While it would take much too long to explain at this juncture, rest assured that our results will contain sufficient information to quell your fears. The portion of the study that recently entered the public arena had to do with leaking misinformation about Cystic Fibrosis to students about to participate in a fundraiser for a charity that is trying to combat the disease. While our final report will be much more complete, what we can tell at this point is that the initial leak on a blog made it into the print media unchecked, and that one of the students' friends read the print media and relayed the information to the committee, which voted to direct their money elsewhere. Even we were surprised at the credibility given to this source, but we are certainly going to learn from this study. At the GNU Public Dictatorship we are nothing if not adaptible!