“A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes.” – Mark Twain

Almost a century after Mark Twain’s death, this quotation has taken on a whole new significance that he never would have envisioned.

In Twain’s day, the telephone still was something of a novelty and worldwide communications were mostly slow and cumbersome. The spreading of lies often depended on simple word of mouth.

How quaint.

In the age of the Internet, any piece of information – truth, lie or something in between – can travel around the world at a keystroke. Sorting out the veracity of that information, however, can take much longer and, unfortunately, many people just don’t bother.

The speed of the modern rumor mill came to mind this week while reading a column by a Spokane, Wash., columnist about former Kansas University basketball player Micah Downs, who left KU in the middle of his freshman year and now is playing for Gonzaga. During an interview, Downs noted that after he left KU, Internet message boards were humming with comments about what had happened. The only problem is that none of the commentators really knew why the player had left KU and, according to Downs, almost all of the rumors were untrue.

Nonetheless, they were traveling around the world and back, probably being elaborated on each time the forward button was pushed in something that resembled an international game of “Gossip.”

Of course, many Jayhawk fans had no use for Downs, especially when he decided to leave. In fact, many of those Internet rumors probably had their start right here in Lawrence. Many people see such activity as harmless and nothing more than what someone like Downs should expect after placing himself in the public eye.

Maybe that’s true, but the Internet has raised idle gossip to a whole new level with vastly increased consequences. Not only are Internet postings instantly beamed around the world, they linger in cyberspace forever – whether they are true or not.

It’s amazing how in the age of instant communication and unlimited information, people may not really have any better idea of the truth than they did in Twain’s day.