Pro tip: I spent 3 years fact-checking articles using just the first Google result without clicking it

Finally caught myself last week when I tried to debunk a story about a town banning plastic bags in Boise. Turns out that headline snippet Google showed me was from a 2018 satire site, not the real news article from 2024. How many times have you relied on those little preview boxes without checking the actual source? Anyone else been burned by trusting Google's summary too much?

3 comments

3 Comments

marybutler11d ago

I caught that same Boise satire snippet and almost cited it in a neighborhood Facebook group post about water conservation.

the_sean11d ago

Hang on, did you catch that the satire was actually based on a real city ordinance they were making fun of? I looked it up after seeing that piece, and the real rule is way less dramatic but people are still mad about it. So the satire was almost too close to reality, which is probably why it fooled so many people in the first place. Makes you wonder how many "fake" news stories we skim past that secretly started from a true thing.

wendy_lee4811d ago

Lost my entire lawn to clover last summer trying to save water. Now the HOA hates me.