Craig Silverman Helps Build BuzzFeed’s CEN Case Through Emergent And “Truthiness” Checks

This December 2014 to January 2015 email chain shows Tom Phillips introducing Craig Silverman to Alan White as BuzzFeed began developing what Phillips described as a possible piece on CEN as “a source for a large number of dubious stories that go big on the web”. Silverman says he would “love to talk” because he thinks “CEN needs to be exposed”, while also discussing Emergent, his platform for tracking online claims, debunks and rumour spread. The chain is significant because it shows the CEN investigation forming around spreadsheets, reverse-image searches, social-share counts, URL tracking and privately created Emergent claim pages, rather than completed original reporting at source. Silverman suggests using Emergent to create private claim pages for each story, record URLs, capture social share counts, backdate old items so they would not appear as new, and later tag them together for comparison or publication. Phillips also proposes a “breadcrumb trail” of research and says he will go back through old CEN copy used at Metro to see if he can “trace some patterns”. The evidential value is that BuzzFeed was building a narrative from suspicion, pattern-matching and online spread data, while still needing to decide whether individual stories were actually false, exaggerated, wrongly sourced or simply difficult to verify. This sits with the wider “truthiness ratings” material, where BuzzFeed’s internal process appears to involve grading stories by plausibility or apparent truth rather than first establishing the facts through source-level reporting. (BuzzFeed_000284.) Silverman is still signing here with his Tow Center and Poynter / Regret the Error credentials while working with BuzzFeed on the CEN project.

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Part of Central European News & Mike Leidig v BuzzFeed (US Second Circuit Libel Case) – BF Case Documents

Europe Media Published 1 May 2026 at 21:09 Source: 1 November 2016

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This December 2014 to January 2015 email chain shows Tom Phillips introducing Craig Silverman to Alan White as BuzzFeed began developing what Phillips described as a possible piece on CEN as “a source for a large number of dubious stories that go big on the web”. Silverman says he would “love to talk” because he thinks “CEN needs to be exposed”while also discussing Emergenthis platform for tracking online claimsdebunks and rumour spread. The chain is significant because it shows the CEN investigation forming around spreadsheetsreverse-image searchessocial-share countsURL tracking and privately created Emergent claim pagesrather than completed original reporting at source. Silverman suggests using Emergent to create private claim pages for each storyrecord URLscapture social share countsbackdate old items so they would not appear as newand later tag them together for comparison or publication. Phillips also proposes a “breadcrumb trail” of research and says he will go back through old CEN copy used at Metro to see if he can “trace some patterns”. The evidential value is that BuzzFeed was building a narrative from suspicionpattern-matching and online spread datawhile still needing to decide whether individual stories were actually falseexaggeratedwrongly sourced or simply difficult to verify. This sits with the wider “truthiness ratings” materialwhere BuzzFeed’s internal process appears to involve grading stories by plausibility or apparent truth rather than first establishing the facts through source-level reporting. [Needs citation to truthiness ratings document / BuzzFeed_000284.] Silverman is still signing here with his Tow Center and Poynter / Regret the Error credentials while working with BuzzFeed on the CEN project.

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