Wikipedia fraud

http://news.aol.com/article/wikipedia-quote-hoax/475157?icid=main|aimzones|dl1|link3|http%3A%2F%2Fnews.aol.com%2Farticle%2Fwikipedia-quote-hoax%2F475157

This article talks about the effects of posting a fake quote on Wikipedia immediately following the death of a French Composer. Later, in obituaries and other news mediums, the quote was circulated. Even though Wikipedia twice removed the quote, this demonstrated the role of wikipedia in the social network of journalists. Not only was it consulted or inspired the spread of this false quote, but no significant measure to verify facts were taken. It is interesting to note that one fairly unreliable source (Anyone can make posts to wikipedia) could have sparked such significant amounts of false claims in various newspapers and websites around the world. The ease and speed with which this quote spread is an effect of the popularity of wikipedia as a resource in the journaling network.

This raises some very interesting questions about the normal methodology for the media gathering its information. I believe it goes back to the search methods talked about before in class. To gain valuable information, one must perform searches for it. A search, no matter how well-done, usually requires some number of steps to find the desired location (or in this case, credible source of information). This search takes a fair amount of time. If one lowers the credibility standards of source (as an example, from finding a firsthand witness (2 people qualify), to finding a secondhand account (10 people qualify)), the search becomes shorter, because one can choose from many more target destinations of the search. (3 jumps to a firsthand witness, to 1 jump on the address bar to Wikipedia). Personally, it makes me wonder what other corners have been cut in the media's search for "reliable information" on their stories that we never hear about, and may never actually find out about.

Journalists should know that wikipedia is an unreliable source, especially for reasons stated above--that anyone can post on it. They are required to fact check and while this article might seem like a peek into the world of the media and how they always make mistakes and cause cascades about false facts and such, I don't think a misattributed quote is something to bash the media for. Not that I don't find any fault in the situation but I'm sure if it was something much more important, the journalist would have checked more carefully. There's a lot of negativity out there concerning the media but we should keep in mind that a lot of useful information cascades wouldn't even start if we didn't get media reports about the world surrounding us. Wikipedia is a no-no for sure, but cut the journalists some slack.

We can also think about this as information cascade and diffusion of information. The journalist group can be considered a cluster. If some journalist happens to stumble upon this quote on wikipedia, and some how this information got spread to his fellow journalists, then it is possible for many journalist to get false information. Let's think about it in another way. You should use the quote if a majority of your competitive journalists use the quote as to not fall behind and look bad. Even if the information happens to be wrong, you can be wrong with everyone else. We can also consider this a normal form game. There is much more to gain to follow the quote information than not to follow it; this might be due to pressure from boss, or somehow you believe the information is correct, etc. Of course, I am not saying wikipedia is a good way for a journalist to gather information, but a good way to check what information are out there. Because wikipedia is open to anyone's post, there might be a chance that a firsthand witness posting it. But the problem is, how do we know? This also goes to show how much the wikipedia network has linked people together.