It's the circular gossip method. Many decades ago, I used to actually use this in my industry to jerk the chain of a huge competitor, who would get all in a tizzy and shoot itself in the foot reacting to it.

There was a guy who was in a central position in the industry (president of a company that made a key component) who was a huge gossip. I would call him up and say, "Ken, have you heard the rumor that [very big foreign company] is secretly funding us in case [same very big company's paranoid US subsidiary] can't pull off the project? I don't know where this is coming from, but It really has me upset, and there is just no truth to it. I hope you'll scotch it if you hear it."

"Wow, no, I hadn't heard that!" he'd say. But by the next day, everyone would have heard that "I hear [my very tiny company] is denying they're being secretly funded by [very big company] but you know, where there's smoke, there's fire!"

Then [same very big company's paranoid US subsidiary] would go nuts and run around talking about it, and "why would that rumor get started?" and it was the best PR we could possibly have had. Very big foreign companies from across another ocean asked us and, when we told them no, we were not yet aligned, we were offered alliances and funding for our projects from them. So from my own experience, this is how you plant rumors.