The JD Vance rumor shows how easily misinformation spreads, with or without AI

A silly joke falsely claiming the vice-presidential candidate had been intimate with a couch would have probably just been a one-day meme. Then an AP story went viral.

The Mandela Effect is when people vividly remember something differently from how it actually happened. The Streisand Effect is when someone takes great pains to suppress information, inadvertently drawing further attention to it. And after this week, a brand-new phenomenon will sit comfortably in the same cushy section of the lexicon as its predecessors.