A young American has learned with amazement that he was identified in a lawsuit involving the British newspaper The Independent, after a judge accepted a reference from Wikipedia that named him as co-founder of the publication, a reference added by a friend of his trying to play a prank on him, writes Business Insider.
The report contains the name of a 25-year-old young man from the U.S., Brett Straub, identified as founder of The Independent, with Andreas Whittam Smith and Stephen Glover in 1986.
Contacted by reporters, Straub said he was never in the UK and has not heard of The Independent newspaper and Levenson report. The young man said that he must be the victim of a joke made by a friend of his who also introduced his name in other Wikipedia articles.
“I have no idea what you mean. It’s funny, I do not read newspapers. I graduated eight months ago and the most important thing I learned is I never trust Wikipedia,”
said Straub. He said he was amazed that the UK public would trust the articles on the online encyclopedia that anyone can change.
“My friend changed several pages of Wikipedia and he entered my name in articles… I thought they were corrected already. I knew he had done these things but I did not know how to correct them and I thought someone else did. At one point, I was the creator of Coca-Cola or something,”
said Straub.
Name of Wikipedia articles colored in red don’t have their own records, and can be revised. The name of Matthew Symonds, a journalist from The Independent, was replaced with that of the young Californian, Brett Straub. The publication was founded before Straub was even born.
The change was made in October 2011 and remained so for a year until someone corrected it. The Internet Protocol address was identified as belonging to California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, where Straub graduated last year with a degree in architecture.
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