How the CA Gay Marriage Twitter Rumor Started

News can go viral instantly in today’s age. With much anticipation, many Twitterers were excited to learn today that the California Supreme Court overturned the marriage ban via other Twitterers, including myself. As soon as I heard the news, I sent word out to my followers and Facebook friends citing that I was happy to see the ban overturned; that there’s been no greater injustice during my lifetime then to deny civil rights to LGBT and I was going to celebrate with a beer. Instantly, my followers began re-tweeting until I looked at the date of the article cited from the Los Angeles Times – May 15, 2008, exactly one year ago from today. (Article)

How did this happen? From my Twitter @aoflores:

The first mention of the CA gay marriage rumor was by @femmetron 5 hrs ago. But they didn’t say it was a current decision.

It appears that @QueerSpawn then claimed a strike of CA gay marriage ban an hour later.

He get’s it right. RTstuartgaffney One year ago today — May 15, 2008 –”California Supreme Court Overturns Gay Marriage Ban” – 1 YR AGO!

I believe @laerkin was 3rd in CA gay marriage rumor followed @jtwb568. 2 hours into it, the rumor was viral on Twitter.

This is a real bummer for Twitter, typically a great way to get information about – that is, unless it’s the wrong information out on one of the most important civil right decisions of our time.

Is the LA Times to blame as well. Supposedly, they tweeted a link to story earlier on their site which has since been deleted.

So who started the CA Gay Marriage Ban Twitter Rumor? We did. We all did.

UPDATE: The LATimes article now says that article is an ARCHIVE STORY. This wasn’t on the story earlier today.

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