It`s often the case that a rumor gets picked up on the Internet & overtime, turns into “news”. So how does one differentiate? After all, you can’t trust everything you read on the Net, right? Now, there’s a real time rumor-tracking Site called Emergent that will help you know the difference.

Emergent is part of a research project with the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University that focuses on how unverified information & rumors are reported in the media. It aims to develop & best practices for debunking misinformation.This Site to stop Online rumors from masquerading as News is the brainchild of journalist & fellow at Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Media, Craig Silverman.

Emergent works through a combination of human & algorithmic processing. Silverman & a research assistant gather rumors that are being reported, almost, always from social media Sites. Silverman & his research assistant search Google News, an aggregator of various news outlets’, for the various takes on the story. They, then enter these stories into a database, & the stories that need to be debunked are assigned a “truthiness rating.” This allows them to track stories which (a) claim to be true (b) which ones debunk the story (c) which ones are just re-reporting the original story.

Once this is over, the algorithm then takes over. Emergent.info is essentially a Web app, built on an API from the back-end database. Every hour, Emergent.info’s script crawls the stories to see whether their text has changed. The system also checks share counts to monitor how stories are moving through the social media ecosystem.

Here’s how to Use Emergent:

• You can view a list of rumors being tracked on the home page, along with their current claim state (True, False, Unverified).
• Click on a story to visit a page that visualizes the sources reporting the rumor, and a breakdown of social shares per source.
• You can also click on individual articles on the story page to see specific revision and social share data about that article.

Basically, Emergent is all about trying answer a simple question – Is it (the story) true?

Rumors & unverified information emerge constantly & spread over social networks, via messaging apps & through word of mouth. They cascade across borders & social circles with incredible velocity, all the while picking up new elements, morphing, or being confirmed or debunked. The two-month old Emergent claims to be the place where you can confirm the veracity of the information.

Image Credit: Emergent

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