How American Airlines tapped social media to quickly squelch an Internet rumor

Did you hear the rumor that American Airlines was offering free flights to Haiti? It gave American quite the social media headache. Here’s how it started — and how American reacted to the situation: Someone in Haiti tweeted (falsely) about the free American flights; film critic Roger Ebert saw it and retweeted the info to his 50,000 followers. That sparked countless more retweets, including one from actor Rainn Wilson, who has more than 1.8 million followers. Yikes. But American acted quickly…