Two types of false confirmation. Dashed lines indicate sourcing invisible to a reviewer. In each case, a source (top) appears to a reviewer (bottom) as two independent sources.
Circular reporting, orfalse confirmation, is a situation insource criticism where a piece of information appears to come from multiple independent sources, but in reality comes from only one source.[1][2] In many cases, the problem happens mistakenly through sloppy reporting or intelligence-gathering. However, the situation can also be intentionally contrived by the source or reporter as a way of reinforcing the widespread belief in its information.[3]
AuthorAlex Haley grew up hearing theoral history that his family's first ancestor to enter the United States was a young man named Kunta Kinte, who lived near the Kamby Bolongo, orGambia River, and was kidnapped into slavery when out gathering wood. As an adult, Haley researched his family genealogy for what would become the 1976 novelRoots: The Saga of an American Family, and he traveled to the Gambia in an attempt to confirm the family history of Kinte. Haley told the story of Kinte to a seminar of Gambian tribal experts, who searched for agriot—an oral historian—who might be able to confirm the story. Ultimately, Haley met a man named Kebba Fofana in the town of Juffure who was able to relate a story of Kunta Kinte that was strikingly similar to Haley's lifelong family history, an apparent confirmation that grounded Haley's novel (as well as the landmark1977 miniseries adapted from the novel). After publication, however, it was discovered that griot oral histories were not reliable for dates before the 19th century, that Fofana was not a true griot, and that Fofana's confirmation of Haley's history was ultimately a retelling of the story Haley himself told Gambian experts.[6][7][8][9]
In 2001, theNiger uranium forgeries, documents initially released bySISMI (the former military intelligence agency of Italy), seemed to depict an attempt made bySaddam Hussein inIraq to purchaseyellowcake uranium powder fromNiger during theIraq disarmament crisis. They were referenced by other intelligence agencies to convince their governments or public that such a purchase had taken place.
In 2004, the Chairman of the USSenate Report on Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq told NBC's Tim Russert that a single informant, 'Curveball' "had really provided 98 percent of the assessment as to whether or not the Iraqis had a biological weapon."[10] This was despite the fact that "nobody inside the U.S. government had ever actually spoken to the informant—except [for a single] Pentagon analyst, who concluded the man was an alcoholic and utterly useless as a source."[11]
In early 2012, aTV Tropes user named Tunafish claimed that a bug existed inCivilization that caused Gandhi to be much more aggressive. Tunafish did not provide any proof. The repetition of this false information led to the "Nuclear Gandhi" internet meme.[12][13]
In 2018,Shehroze Chaudhry was identified as an active member of theIslamic State who participated in the killing of several individuals, through reporting involving aNew York Times podcast, among others.[14] The podcast and other outlets referenced blog posts authored by Chaudhry starting in 2016. The podcast was taken by government officials and others as evidence of the crime; however, the original posts were unverified and later renounced by the author.
"Citogenesis" redirects here; not to be confused withcytogenesis.
Wikipedia is sometimes criticized for being used as a source of circular reporting, particularly a variant where an unsourced claim in a Wikipedia article is repeated by a reliable source, often without citing the article; which is then added as a source to the claim on Wikipedia.[15][16]
Thexkcd comic strip that coined the termcitogenesis[17]
The first recorded use of the termcitogenesis to describe this phenomenon was in November 2011, whenRandall Munroe used it in anxkcd comic strip. Theneologism is attributed as being ahomophonic wordplay on 'cytogenesis', the formation, development and variation ofbiological cells.[18]
An article in the magazineSlate referenced the four-step process described in the comic, to raise awareness about citogenesis as facilitated by Wikipedia. This type of circular reporting has been described as particularly hard to catch because of the speed of revisions of modern webpages, and the lack of "as of" timestamps in citations and "last updated" timestamps on pages online.[16]
2008: A user by the name of "Lordvolton" (often mistakenly cited as Lordvoltron), added a fake "xeraflop" prefix to the Wikipedia page aboutfloating point operations per second.[26] It was then widely propagated in numerous sources.[27][28][29]
2009: The middle name "Wilhelm" was falsely added intoKarl-Theodor zu Guttenberg's name. This was propagated by a raft of publications, including German and international press.[30]
2009: An incorrect release year of 1991 was added to the Wikipedia article of theCasio F-91W watch. TheBBC repeated this in a 2011 article. Communication with primary sources repeatedly confirmed a 1989 release year, but because the BBC is usually a reliable secondary source, their use of 1991 made the misinformation difficult to remove. In 2019,KSNV cited this incident as another example of citogenesis.[31] The correct year was only restored after that review, with the KSNV article becoming cited in the article to support restoring the 1989 release date.
2014: A statement was anonymously added to the Wikipedia page on UK comedianDave Gorman stating that he had "taken a career break for a sponsored hitchhike around the Pacific Rim countries". When this was questioned, an article published at a later date (September 2014) inThe Northern Echo, a daily regional newspaper inNorth East England was cited as evidence. Gorman repudiated the claim in episode 3, season 4 of his UK television showModern Life Is Goodish (first broadcast 22 November 2016).[32][33]
2022: A hoax article aboutAlan MacMasters, purported inventor of thetoaster, was discovered to have been picked up in news media later used as citations.[34]
^Hurley, Micheal T.; Smith, Kenton V. (26 April 2004)."Chapter 8: The Aviv Report".I Solemnly Swear: Conmen, Dea, the Media and Pan Am 103. New York:iUniverse. p. 129.ISBN0-595-29947-4. Retrieved26 June 2019.Circular reporting occurs when what is reported is fed back to the originator in revised fashion which makes it difficult to objectively view the end product until you can trace back the sources to determine where the original information actually came from.Pan Am would eventually try to play that game by trying to introduce into court news reports that they themselves had a hand in producing.[self-published source]
^Drogin, Bob;Hamburger, Tom (17 February 2006)."Niger Uranium Rumors Wouldn't Die".Los Angeles Times. Retrieved26 June 2019.This became a classic case of circular reporting," said a U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to reporters. "It seemed like we were hearing it from lots of places. People didn't realize it was the same bad information coming in different doors. This is an interesting example of circular reporting.
^Safier, Neil (2014)."Beyond Brazilian Nature: The Editorial Itineraries of Marcgraf and Piso'sHistoria Naturalis Brasiliae". In Groesen, Michiel van (ed.).The Legacy of Dutch Brazil. New York: Cambridge University Press. p. 179.ISBN978-1-107-06117-0.In the case of the Coati, for instance, also known as the Brazilian aardvark, Buffon explained that "Marcgrave, and practically all of the Naturalists after him, said that the aardvark had six toes in its hind feet: M. Brisson is the only one who has not copied this error of Marcgrave."
