I was perusing the headlines on the Legal Daily site (not recommended, by the way), and I was struck with the following observation: there are only two types of stories on there. The first is your basic “The government is fighting a valiant effort against the scourge of XYZ” story — look for “??” in the headline, works every time.

The second type of story involves a government body, usually a municipality, quelling an online rumor. I was surprised at how many times I saw this sort of thing. I then realized that these stories were the end of result of this sort of process:

1) Rumor started on a BBS;

2) Rumor is circulated online (and this is China, so we’re talking big numbers);

3) Several people start asking questions of their local government to ascertain validity of the rumor;

4) Local government wastes lots of time responding to queries and issues a statement/does a press conference to quell the rumor; and finally

5) Someone writes a news article about the local government putting the rumor to rest.

That seems like a lot of time and effort that could be better spent on something else. Makes me wonder just how pissed off the folks in the government are at these rumors and whether any of the Net censorship/control efforts are targeted at this sort of activity.

I know what you’re thinking: “Wait a minute, aren’t these rumors just a few nutcases talking about how they saw a Yeti on their last ski trip to Harbin and how the government is covering it up?” Yes, sometimes.

But in other cases, this stuff is much more serious. Consider the rumors that were circulated on February 21 about a possible earthquake in Shanxi. The “source” claimed to have inside information from a government earthquake monitoring center, and a large number of people in the area freaked out and spent the night outdoors in an attempt to increase their odds of survival should the quake hit.

Turns out there was no quake in Shanxi (there was one in Yunnan a few days later, which some are saying validates the original rumor!), and a few of the people responsible for the rumor/circulating it have been arrested. As far as these individuals are concerned, it reminds me of the classic U.S. Supreme Court opinion written by Holmes (Schenck vs. United States) in which he used the example of someone yelling “fire” in a crowded theater as unprotected speech. The claim has to be false, of course, which is what we had in the earthquake rumor situation.

I’ve also been reading a lot of press coverage today on the new site registration rules (this post has details). The knee-jerk reaction of most journalists is to roll these new rules into an overall discussion of Net censorship and control over online speech. I think the story is much more complicated and that they’re missing a couple of different angles. I’ve talked before about the IP infringement implications of real name site registration and ID checks.

The issue of online rumors is another area where real name systems do not seem like such horrible things. Foreign and domestic activists will point to examples involving political speech, where the new rules will make it easier to find hitherto anonymous critics, but cases of irresponsible nut jobs spreading panic about earthquakes abound and (along with IP infringement concerns) provide reasonable justification for the tougher registration system.

A secondary issue is the government’s response to such irresponsible online speech. The earthquake rumor example is a bit too easy. Most people, I think, would agree that that sort of rumor mongering is wrong and should be punished. What about less dangerous stuff, false  statements out there that occupy government time and energy?

I think at the end of the day, local governments need to stop responding to all this crap. Two reasons:

1) There is a never-ending supply of paranoid garbage, and you can never track down everything.

2) Denying rumors isn’t productive anyway because the public doesn’t trust the veracity of the denials in many cases.

Let’s face it, if you live in a city where everyone knows that the municipal government circulates fake weather reports (lower in the Summer, higher in the Winter) to keep people on the job and kids at school, are you going to trust the flat denials of a juicy Internet rumor?

Moreover, as the immortal George Carlin once said, “Think about how stupid the average person is, then realize that half the people are even dumber than that.” In other words, there are a lot of folks out there who honestly believe that the baozi they’re eating is really a tiny alien spaceship (and want everyone to know it), and when a local official tells them it isn’t true, that just proves to them that the government is in on the conspiracy.

Resources are dear and online rumors are legion. Local government needs to choose its battles wisely.