For a few minutes near the end of his first presidential debate, Mike Bloomberg was dead. At 9:38 p.m. Eastern time, a Wikipedia user named DQUACK02 added some text to the Wikipedia page for the former Democratic presidential candidate and New York City mayor:
“death_date = {{Death date and age|2020|02|19|1942|02|14}}; |death_place = [[Las Vegas, Nevada]], U.S.; |death_cause = [[Getting stabbed by Warren, Biden and Sanders]].”
Within three minutes, another user named Cgmusselman had reverted the page back. By then the inevitable screenshots and joke tweets had already begun to spread. It was an obvious hoax, and a rather cartoonish example of Wikipedia at its worst—the reason why many people still believe it can’t be trusted: Anyone can edit it! But it was also Wikipedia at its best: Anyone can also edit an edit!
“Most of these edits are small improvements to phrasing or content, a few are masterpieces, and some are vandalism,” says Cgmusselman, who is Charley…
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Source : fastcompany.com
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