On Rumors: How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, What Can Be Done
By Cass R. Sunstein
Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 112 pages
So much for the internet as a marketplace of ideas. As Cass Sunstein sees it, the Web is largely an unregulated playground for rumormongers who understand that a titillating lie often outpaces a mundane or complicated truth--especially if such gossip reinforces what we think we already know. Which explains why some Americans still believe Barack Obama is Muslim (he's not) or that Sarah Palin thinks the continent of Africa is one country (she doesn't). As for those who...