Keeping Rumors in Proportion: Managing Uncertainty in Rumor Systems

The study of rumors has garnered wider attention as regulators and researchers turn towards problems of misinformation on social media. One goal has been to discover and implement mechanisms that promote healthy information ecosystems. Classically defined as regarding ambiguous situations, rumors pose the unique difficulty of intrinsic uncertainty around their veracity. Further complicating matters, rumors can serve the public when they do spread valuable true information. To address these challenges, we develop an approach that reifies "rumor proportions" as central to the theory of systems for managing rumors. We use this lens to advocate for systems that, rather than aiming to stifle rumors entirely or aiming to stop only false rumors, aim to prevent rumors from growing out of proportion relative to normative benchmark representations of intrinsic uncertainty.