Wikipedia owned up to the hoax after it was brought to their attention by ShelfSkewed on Dec. 29, and quickly deleted the piece.
This was not the first time that Wikipedia has been fooled by a hoax. Last July, an article on Gaius Flavius Antoninus — who purportedly conspired in the plot to assassinate Julius Caesar — had to be purged after someone noticed it was a work of fiction.
“Unfortunately, hoaxes on Wikipedia are nothing new, and the craftier they are, the more difficult it is to catch them,” one Wikipedia consultant told Yahoo News.
“Anyone who’s clever enough to make up convincing sources and motivated enough to spend the time and skilled enough to write a plausible article can deceive whole Internet—at least for awhile.”
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