“A lie can get halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” That old saw is now hopelessly out of date.

These days, a malicious falsehood can become global news in a matter of seconds, especially if it contains suggestions that pants might have come off. Human beings love to share shocking gossip, and internet technology means that we can do so at terrifying speed and scale.

Social media now resembles the lower-rent tabloids of old, rife with fantastical pieces about aliens or sex slaves and the occult

Social media now resembles the lower-rent tabloids of old, rife with fantastical pieces about aliens or sex slaves and the occult

Take, for instance, the incredible tale of the feline JPMorgan executive who “sexually harassed” a junior male staff member. As the world knows by now, Lorna Hajdini, a 37-year-old Albanian in the bank’s leveraged finance division, has been accused of repeatedly forcing herself on a married Asian employee, apparently drugging him with Viagra and Rohypnol in order to........

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