3 ms·

Truth is such a slippery concept. How easy it was to create by a school kid, and how organically it grew over time despite being entirely made up. Imagine how m

• rspeer 10y ago
  A while back, I forget who, but someone tracked down some false facts that were supported by circular references in Wikipedia. Wikipedia doesn't allow you to cite Wikipedia, of course, but the trickster added an unsupported, false fact to Wikipedia, which was quoted by someone's blog, which was quoted in an article by a "science" "journalist", and then the trickster updated the Wikipedia page to reference that article. I think it's important to take note that this can happen instead of dismissing it as childish pranks. We should apply the "security mindset" to our sources of information, not just to our computation.
  • adrianN 10y ago
    Maybe you remember https://xkcd.com/978/ https://xkcd.com/978/
    • rspeer 10y ago
      Good point. It's clearly based on a real thing, too.
• kanyethegreat 10y ago
  Good point. However, he does touch on the fact that since the information was so trivial, not many people cared to vet its validity. Hopefully, people would be more critical of "harmful" information. "We form rough consensuses based on vast amounts of conflicting data, but who really has the power to verify any of it? This is especially true when the stakes are low. A lot of people will put effort into dispelling rumors that the Moon landing was fake or that Hitler is still alive, sure, but who cares enough about something as meaningless and easy to ignore as Street Sharks to make sure all the information about it online is totally accurate?"