A Lie Gets Halfway Around Social Media While the Truth Is Still Getting Its Boots On

Why did so many people think a blatantly fake apology from Chris Rock was real?

James Surowiecki
OneZero
Published in
4 min readMar 31, 2022

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Peter Chernaev / Getty Images

A couple of days after Will Smith slapped Chris Rock at the Oscars, a guy you’ve never heard of who thought that Rock should apologize for having made a joke at Jada Pinkett Smith’s expense…

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James Surowiecki
OneZero

I’m the author of The Wisdom of Crowds. I’ve been a business columnist for Slate and The New Yorker and written for a wide range of other publications.