In this MIT Sloan Management article, they explain a little about this.

"No matter how you slice it, falsity wins out," said co-author Deb Roy, who runs MIT's Laboratory for Social Machines and is a former chief media scientist at Twitter.

Twitter funded the study but had no say in the outcome, according to the researchers.

The scientists calculated that the average false story takes about 10 hours to reach 1,500 Twitter users, versus about 60 hours for the truth. On average, false information reaches 35 percent more people than true news.

While true news stories almost never got retweeted to 1,000 people, the top 1 percent of the false ones got to as many as 100,000 people.

University of Pennsylvania communications professor Kathleen Hall Jamieson, a co-founder of factcheck.org, had problems with the way the study looked at true and false stories. The MIT team characterized a story's truth on a 1-to-5 scale, with 1 being completely false. Factcheck.org, Jamieson said, looks more at context and does not label something either true or false.

She also suggested that calling this bogus information "false stories" does not capture how malignant it is. She said it would "better be called viral deception. VD. And treated as analogous to venereal disease."

There are many reasons for this, namely because most false stories tend to be sensational. Sensationalism sells.

Let’s say for example that someone where you work were to start a rumor that the smallest weakest looking guy there claims to bench 300 pounds, now for this example we’ll assume that he can’t. The rumor/”false story” would spread quickly. It wouldn’t be long before someone would ask him, “Do you really think that anyone believes that you can bench 300 pounds?”

If I were to hear that story, I wouldn’t believe it. Why would someone claim something that is obviously not true? What would they have to gain from it? The short answer is nothing substantial. The most they could hope for would be to gather negative attention, however; the rumor could be potentially beneficial to the person who started it.

Let’s say the person with whom the rumor was directed, was up for a promotion. The silly rumor might make management think that the guy is not a reliable source of information. They might think, “If he’ll exaggerate about something like that; why would we believe him in an important business situation?”

It’s easy to see how this sort of thing can be damaging. It’s also easy to see how this sort of misinformation can be used to one’s advantage as well. Something not mentioned in the story is how most people believe the first thing they hear; it causes them to form an opinion at that point in time. Everyone knows, it’s always harder to change someone’s opinion. After all, that’s why they say first impressions are often the most important. That being the case, misinformation campaigns are often successful. Once the story is out, the opinion is formed.

Take the Michael Wolff book for example. Wolff all but admitted that most of the book is entirely fabricated. But because of the sensational nature of the book, the news ran with the story for multiple days. Those in the media had to know that the majority of the information in the book was simply not true. Wolff made sensational claims in the book, this was done with the intention of selling copies, because why? Sensationalism sells.

Those in the media who interviewed Wolff were aware at the time of the interview that Wolff was going beyond stretching the truth, but they reported on it anyway. They used language designed to make it look like they were interviewing Wolff, when they were actually trying to get that rumor out there. The headline would read “'Fire and Fury' author Michael Wolff: Trump may be having extramarital affair in White House.”

These sorts of headlines are designed to plant a seed. That way, when you hear something about Trump and an affair, you will remember having heard something about it before. It doesn’t matter whether or not it’s true, you’ve heard it before. You will probably hear it again and again. Once you hear it enough, you’ll start to believe it.

There’s another name for "viral deception," It’s called PROPAGANDA.

When looking at the current state of things, I think that Obama's / The Democrat's plan is all the more visible. For starters you have the FBI stating that they are investigating claims that Trump, or people within his administration have ties to the Russians, but they are not surveilling them by electronic means? Are they holding a glass to the door at opportune times?

This wreaks of the left's planning on such issues. Obama leaves office, but just before he does, he leaves directives to have his appointed people leave all these bread crumbs behind. Then as if like magic, the goofy claims of Trump and the Russians come to the surface during the presidential debate, raised by Hillary herself, who did, directly benefit from Russian dealings.

I smell a rat. You know this is illegitimate, because it's part of a media narrative, that's all you need to know. When the media keeps trumpeting something, it's a lie. That's how propaganda works. Case in point.

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Hillary Clinton has had her prayers answered. They are answered by the arrival of Evan McMullin.

Evan McMullin

This is confirmed by the fact that McMullin has missed the filling deadlines in too many states to actually win. This comes down to simple math. There is no possible way for McMullin to gather enough electoral votes to win, so why be in the race at all?

The truth is that he is a spoiler for the Republican Establishment. He might gain popular votes in states with a Mormon majority. That's the only reason he's in the race. He's there to take votes from Trump so Hillary can win the Electoral College.

This man is a fraud and should be ignored. He does not help to move this country in any direction except backwards. He wishes to move the country into a more totalitarian position. McMullin is supporting Hillary by fiat.

P.S. The "Never Trump Movement" is the "Pro-Establishment" / "Pro-Hillary Movement" in reality. No matter how they slice it, it's a binary election. Socialism, or Trumpism. Which would you prefer?

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Many people feel like voting is just another way of throwing your "two cents" in; they might be right, it appears that your vote matters very little. In fact some people including many Bernie Sanders voters are starting to think that the process is rigged. Check this out. Those voters "feeling the bern" might not be too far from the truth.

At least a half-dozen Democratic superdelegates in New York State who have already decided to support Hillary Clinton said Tuesday they would maintain their allegiance to her — regardless of the results of the Empire State’s primary.

Even if Sanders were to win the April 19 New York presidential contest, when a whopping 247 delegates are at stake, every single New York superdelegate reached by the Daily News said they would never back the Vermont senator.

Right now, if Sanders had the superdelegate votes that Clinton currently has, he’d be winning handily, with 1,444 total delegates to Clinton’s 1,272.

Currently, Clinton has 1,712, total delegates, compared with 1,004 for Sanders. Excluding superdelegates, however, Clinton’s lead is only 1,243 to 975 — a narrower difference that has prompted the Sanders campaign to say it will try to convince many superdelegates to jump ship and support him.

I have news for you, the Sanders people are 100% right. IT IS RIGGED. Harry Reid said as much.

ANDREA MITCHELL, NBC: There are a lot of concerns among people about the role of the super delegates. Here you've got Hillary Clinton getting clobbered in New Hampshire, 22-point landslide by Bernie Sanders, and yet, they divided the delegates 15-15 because she had so many super delegates, so many members of Congress and Senators and the governor of course. Is that a fair process?

SEN. HARRY REID (D-NV): Well, the process was totally unfair before -- eight years ago. Eight years ago, I looked at this and I thought, how in the world could we have the future of this country be dependent on Iowa, which is 93% white, and we have New Hampshire which is 97% white, no diversity, no diversity in Iowa. And have the final decision made as to who is going to be the president of the United States based on those two states, it was wrong. We now have Nevada and South Carolina before we get into the rest of the country as to who's chosen where.

This is better, so much better than it was before. So, think what it would be if this campaign didn't go to Nevada and South Carolina. It was just determined by what happened in Iowa, she won, and you just indicated that even though he won the election by a big margin in New Hampshire, the delegates came out even. It was not a good system. It's getting better.

Another way to look at what Reid said is that votes don't matter in the first two states. His argument about race doesn't make much sense either because all of the Democratic presidential nominees are white.

The truth is that the system is rigged so that the party can get whoever they want in; the voters be damned. Hillary Clinton is not very exciting, there aren't many Democratic voters that I've seen who are excited about Hillary. In fact most people who are avid Hillary supporters are quiet about it from what I've seen. Bernie on the other hand does excite people. That's why he's trending just behind Hillary in most Democratic polls. The Democratic party knows that Bernie would loose to whoever the Republicans put against him, so for the "good of the party" the system is rigged.

The same thing is happening on the Republican side as well. It has become obvious in recent weeks as the Republican party is trying to make sure that people know how the convoluted delegate system works. It's absurd, some states have delegates that are bound to candidates that are no longer in the race.

Some states do not unbind delegates after a certain number of ballots. In Alabama, delegates are elected on the primary ballot, listed next to the presidential candidate they support. They must continue to support that candidate at the convention until two-thirds of the delegation votes to change, or until the candidate releases them.

Other states, like Alaska, unbind delegates if their candidate drops out of the race. Marco Rubio, who suspended his campaign in mid-March, sent a letter to the state party asking it not to release the five delegates he won there.

In 2012, supporters of Representative Ron Paul, the last remaining Republican challenger to Mitt Romney, fought to secure delegates at local and state conventions, particularly in states where those delegates were not tied to election results.

The Iowa delegation, for example, was made up primarily of Mr. Paul’s supporters, even though Mr. Romney and Rick Santorum essentially tied for first in the state’s caucuses.

These tactics did not go over smoothly at the convention. Half of Mr. Paul’s delegates from Maine were unseated, and his supporters erupted with anger after Mr. Romney’s allies passed new rules to prevent Mr. Paul from qualifying for the first nomination vote on the floor.

The party, either party, will get who they want as their nominee. The popular vote has very little to do with who becomes president. People are just now figuring this out.

IT IS RIGGED, AND ALWAYS HAS BEEN. All you need to know is that there are delegates which are not bound in any way to the popular vote.

The argument can be made that this setup was to protect from a populist gaining control and causing irreparable damage. The problem is; now, there are people in place causing irreparable damage and there is no way to get them out! Systems such as our Republic were designed to function with people in charge who were honest and actually looked out for the good of the country. Those times have passed; now it's all about maintaining the power base for either party.

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A Roselle Park councilwoman quit because of a "Christmas" tree lighting. This is a good thing. Get a load of what this person said.

Minutes after the council voted 4-2 Thursday night to change the name of the ceremony from A Tree Lighting to A Christmas Tree Lighting, the councilwoman-at-large, left the meeting. She later submitted her letter of resignation with the municipal clerk's office.

"I cannot in good conscience continue to be part of a council that is exclusionary or to work with a Mayor who is such," Storey said in her letter.

When reached today, Storey said she regretted having to resign, but said the change "cuts non-Christians out of the loop and favors one religion."

Storey, who was raised Catholic but is now a "non-believer" and has never hidden that fact, said the issue is a matter of principle.

Her logic; it's OK to discriminate against Christians, but non-Christians need to be protected? You can't have both, this is a simple reality. If she is that intolerant of Christians, she has the problem.

Trying to change the name of a Christmas tree is not going to solve any of this woman's issues. The fact that an adult would run away from a tree because of its name is proof that she should never have been in any sort of decision making position to begin with. Things are what they are. A Christmas tree is a Christmas tree.

This needs to happen more often. When people stand up to bullies like this lady; they will back down and no longer be a problem. In this case she just walked out. Problem solved.

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