Rumors traveled faster than official reports along Sumatra’s east coast

Evidence

Rumors seemed to have moved up and down the east coast of Sumatra with enormous speed—far faster than official reports—suggesting that these kinds of knowledge traveled more deftly than others. And rumors voiced the possible. With the Aceh resistance still strong, and Gayos from the Aceh area involved in the Luhmann murder, it was not inconceivable, as several military personnel wrote, that there were 50 Gayos in waiting in the hills above the Deli estates, or was it, as one commander [mis]reported, 500? — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1269

Categorization

• XREF: A concrete instance of informal communications outrunning formal channels — parallels the reputation/social-capital literatures’ finding that informal networks beat formal institutions on speed.
• corroborated: 4 independent passages support this claim — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 1269