When Google Is Wrong (!)

Picture this scenario:

 

Royalty-free picture: https://pixabay.com/en/workplace-team-business-meeting-1245776/

You're talking with a group of people, when somebody says, "I crossed the Mississippi River a couple weeks ago. You know, I was expecting it to be huge and impressive, right? But it really wasn't even that wide—it only took a minute to cross the old iron bridge, and I was on land again. Isn't the Mississippi supposed to be the third-longest river in the world?"

"Wait, I thought it was the fourth-longest."

"I'm pretty sure I learned that it was third-longest."

"Ok, let's look it up. How long is the Mississippi, anyway?"

"How do you spell 'Mississippi' again?..."

And people pull out their phones and Google "Mississippi river length." But maybe you shouldn't be so quick to rely on Google for your facts!

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Is Wikipedia in crisis?

A week ago, WIRED published an opinion piece lamenting the decline of the pursuit of knowledge, and claiming that Wikipedia is in crisis.

I saw the headline, "Social Media is Killing Wikipedia," in an e-mail from LinkedIn. The link led to a brief summary of the article (not the article itself...) along with an extensive discussion chain, complete with the hashtag #WikipediaFuture.

Cute.

I clicked it because I suspected the headline would prove to be an assertion that was either exaggerated or simply untrue. In essence, clickbait.

Alas, I wasn't surprised.