At least with most 90's hearsay there wasn't any obvious reason beyond shock value for someone to make it up to spread, yet it got made up and spread anyway. With the Springfield, OH hearsay it's quite likely that people like "Nate Higgers" (videoed at an earlier town meeting) are inventing more than just awful aliases, in which case we need higher epistemic standards than a game of telephone.
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Notes -
At least with most 90's hearsay there wasn't any obvious reason beyond shock value for someone to make it up to spread, yet it got made up and spread anyway. With the Springfield, OH hearsay it's quite likely that people like "Nate Higgers" (videoed at an earlier town meeting) are inventing more than just awful aliases, in which case we need higher epistemic standards than a game of telephone.
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