Information contested
Fictional teaching artefact
Do not treat claims as facts
This hub intentionally mixes verified organisational statements with unverified public claims to model how narratives form under uncertainty.
Student tasks focus on separating signal from noise and tracking claim propagation.
Narrative Drift
This page models how narratives harden. The same claim may become “more certain” over time without new evidence.
| Claim | Early phrasing | Later phrasing | What changed (and what didn’t) |
|---|---|---|---|
| “120k affected” | “Sources suggest…” (NEWS-01) | “Up to 120k affected…” (NEWS-02) → “120k affected” (social summaries) | Certainty increases, but evidence does not. Repetition substitutes for verification. |
| “Data posted” | “Leak site claims…” (NEWS-03) | “Data on leak site” (headline shortening) | Conditional language removed in re-tellings; screenshots are treated as proof. |
| “They paid the ransom” | Question raised on talkback (MED-CLIP-01) | Asserted as fact in comment threads | Speculation becomes allegation through social reinforcement. |
Student task: Corrective messaging
Choose one drifted claim and write:
1) A correction that reduces harm without asserting new facts
2) A 3-bullet “what we know / don’t know / next update” message