The rapidity with which falsity travels has been proverbial for centuries: “Falsehood flies, and the Truth comes limping after it,” wrote Swift in 1710. Yet empirical verification of this common wisdom has been scarce — to our chagrin these past few years as lies in seven league boots outpace a hobbled truth on platforms seemingly bespoke for this lopsided race. A comprehensive new study from MIT looks at a decade of tweets, and finds that not only is the truth slower to spread, but that the threat of bots and the natural network effects of social media are no excuse: we’re doing it to ourselves.