Thread by @BFriedmanDC

In case anyone still cares, here's a short thread on how an online rumor takes off:

Amid rumors that Taylor Swift or Beyonce would perform at the DNC, this blue check account with 600,000 followers tweeted at 12:28 PM CT that a "big surprise" was on the way. The tweet took off.

Twenty minutes later, this other random blue check account with more than 100,000 followers described a "gap in tonight's DNC schedule" for a "special guest." It also got thousands of shares.

Three hours later, at 3:37 PM CT, White House political director Emmy Ruiz tweeted a bee, seeming to confirm rumors of Beyonce.

She later recanted, saying her 6-year-old had accidentally tweeted the bee. But it was too late.

Four minutes before Ruiz said her bee tweet was meaningless at 4:18 PM CT, HuffPost deputy editor Phil Lewis implied that it was packed with meaning, signifying Beyonce as the special guest.

Then, to seemingly tie it all together, TMZ falsely reported at 6:49 PM CT that Beyonce would perform at the DNC. And that was that.

A rumor went from thin air, to blue check influencer accounts, to questionable news sources in just a few hours.

So many lessons in here for online media hygiene!

And now the Angry Staffer account has apologized.

This Krassenstein tweet to his 859,000 followers at 2:45 PM CT also served to fan the flames

This tweet at 12:07 PM CT, citing a CNN reporter, actually preceded the Angry Staffer tweet by 21 minutes. While the tone here isn't nearly as sensational as the tweets that followed, one could argue it sparked the chain reaction sufficiently.

TMZ provided a single, 18-word sentence to acknowledge they reported fake news, then moved right along like it never happened.