10 Times Wikipedia Got It Horribly Wrong

WatchMojo

When the world's most popular encyclopedia gets it wrong, the results can be disastrous! Join us as we explore the most shocking instances where Wikipedia published completely false information. From fabricated wars to fake gods, these editorial mishaps had real-world consequences that went far beyond the digital realm.

Transcript

00:00And I want to identify Wikipedia as an unreliable resource tool.

00:05Welcome to WatchMojo, and today we're counting down our picks for the moments where the internet's encyclopedia didn't check all their facts.

00:16Number 10, Robbie Williams eating pets for money.

00:19If you just did a double take, we wouldn't blame you.

00:22Robbie Williams has been a famous musician for over half his life, and has presumably made enough to live a comfortable, if not lavish, life.

00:28I still want to win the world. I still want to win at everything that I do.

00:34Yet, in 2006, someone hacked his page to say that he made cash on the side by eating pets in various bars.

00:40How someone could make money doing such a thing, along with who made the update, is still unknown today.

00:46The hoax luckily didn't negatively impact his career, but it was an early sign that the editing feature could be abused just to make a bad joke.

00:52You really have to do a... some serious... thinking before anything like that gets done.

01:02Number 9, Coatamundis are Brazilian aardvarks.

01:05All it takes is an odd source and a professional-sounding statement to spread a fake fact.

01:10Such was the case of the Coatamundi, an odd-looking animal in the raccoon family that fell victim to a Wikipedia hoax in 2008.

01:17A member of the raccoon family, this fascinating critter is the Coati, an opportunistic feeder that will eat anything from fruit and spiders to small lizards, snakes, and rodents.

01:27Dylan Breves edited the page to include one simple inclusion, that they were also known as Brazilian aardvarks.

01:34Breves assumed it would be corrected right away, and moved on.

01:36It wasn't until a year later, when he saw his fake terms circulating the web, that he realized how believable it was.

01:42It had been picked up by online and physical media, which only made it harder to prove it wasn't true.

01:47It's proof of how easy it is for even relatively mild lies to be accepted.

01:52Mistakes like this can be fatal.

01:55Number 8, David Beckham was an 18th century goalkeeper.

01:59His talent doesn't just begin and end with football.

02:01It turns out he's also an expert time traveler as well.

02:04David Beckham adds another to his portfolio of magnificent strikes this season.

02:11In 2007, sports legend David Beckham had his Wikipedia page vandalized to report that he had been a goalkeeper for a Chinese team in the 18th century.

02:21Besides the fact that this would have taken place hundreds of years before he was born, it's also a position he's never played professionally before.

02:27The whole thing is obviously wrong from top to bottom.

02:30The fact that it managed to get past the other editors in the first place, and remained published, is a testament to why they had to tighten their rules a couple of years later.

02:38But you know, these things, uh, these things happen.

02:40Number 7, Chris Benoit's horrific crimes.

02:43It's not often one can say a Wikipedia edit lands them in hot water legally.

02:47In 2007, wrestler Chris Benoit carried out a horrific act against his family, before taking his own life.

02:54You didn't want to believe it.

02:55Can't believe it.

02:55Can't be true.

02:57But it was.

02:59Before that information had been released, a poster had updated Benoit's page to report that he had missed a match because his wife had passed away.

03:06The updates had been made just hours before the bodies had been found, making the user behind them seem even more suspicious.

03:11Is, is he in trouble?

03:14Uh, I mean, no, I don't think so.

03:17Alright, as I say, what, what it's created is a big frenzy.

03:21That part I understand.

03:22Alright, because he posted before they found the bodies, before anybody knew, anybody was dead.

03:27He was eventually found and interrogated, where he insisted that he had made the changes based on rumors he'd seen online.

03:32It was purely an eerie coincidence that should have never been published without verification in the first place.

03:37Now you see how, what you think can be pranks, can, you know, I mean, you can turn yourself from a prank to a murder suspect.

03:46Number 6.

03:47John Sigenthaler was involved in John F. Kennedy's assassination.

03:50This wouldn't be the first conspiracy theory to arise from this event, but it doesn't make it any less shocking.

03:55John Sigenthaler, a journalist and political aide, had his Wikipedia page edited in 2005 to say that he had been a suspect in both Robert and John F. Kennedy's assassinations.

04:05When I read it, I laughed out loud.

04:11I'm a suspected assassin.

04:13It was a horrific claim to make given his closeness to both men.

04:16The libelous statement had been up for months before he noticed it, and continued circulating the web even after he had it deleted.

04:22In response, he lambasted the site for its oversight, and warned the government that future politicians and elections will be subject to the spreading of false information.

04:31Irresponsible and unreliable, those are my words.

04:34In hindsight, he wasn't wrong, and we're only learning those consequences now.

04:38Number 5.

04:39SJ.

04:40Wikipedia editors may come across as experts, but at the end of the day, they're anonymous strangers behind a screen.

04:45SJ was one of their top contributors in the mid-2000s.

04:48He claimed to be a professor of religious studies, and his credentials helped him gain power on the site.

04:53Yet, there were some cracks that began to emerge that implied he wasn't who he said he was.

04:57It caused an uproar within the community.

04:59It was eventually revealed that he wasn't an educator at all, but a 24-year-old with an alias.

05:04He resigned from his positions, but that didn't stop the accusations of fraud.

05:08It goes to show that lying about your identity online can help protect yourself, but can also lead to dire consequences.

05:14Number 4.

05:15The Bicholam Conflict.

05:16The world has a long, rich history filled with excitement, making it seem reasonable that some things would slip through the cracks of people's memories.

05:23However, a war between the Portuguese-owned Goa and India is not something that could easily be forgotten.

05:29In 2007, an article detailing a fictional struggle between the two countries was created.

05:34It was known as the Bicholam Conflict, and it claimed that it led to Goa being declared its own independent state.

05:40While it all sounded well-researched, such an event had never taken place at all.

05:44Allowing a hoax to be published as fact is bad enough, but it being up for five years before being deleted goes to show how easy it is to accidentally corroborate a lie.

05:52Number 3.

05:53Sharedo Wenz.

05:55If you thought an obvious hoax existing for five years was bad, wait until you hear this.

05:59There's a plethora of deities around the world, making it understandable that many people wouldn't know every single one.

06:05That made it easy for Jared Owens to create the page for a faux-aboriginal god called Jaredo Wenz in 2005.

06:13The article consisting of two sentences, and the picture he used of the supposed religious figure should have made it obvious it was a joke.

06:20Yet, it survived for nine years, was included on several non-English versions, and was even cited in an atheist book before being deleted in 2015.

06:28It was, at the time, the longest-running prank on the website, and is proof that some people will in fact believe anything they see online.

06:35Number 2.

06:36Tanner Akcham's Detainment.

06:38Most Wikipedia hoaxes end up sounding like a silly story years later.

06:41However, there have been some that have led to serious consequences.

06:45Tanner Akcham was one of the first Turkish historians to acknowledge the Armenian Genocide.

06:49He was inundated with online harassment, including having his page updated to refer to him as a terrorist.

06:55The false information was then used as justification to falsely detain him in Montreal in 2007.

07:01Though it was cleared up, he was stopped days later in the United States, and was even told to stay away from the border until it was resolved.

07:07It got so bad that the website's founder, Jimmy Wales, stepped forward to express his regret, and another editor issued a personal apology.

07:14Number 1.

07:31Ashley Ashton Moore.

07:33False facts on Wikipedia may seem like a phenomenon restricted to the less-moderated days of the 2000s.

07:38However, there are some pages with wrong information that are still up today.

07:42When you look at Ashley Ashton Moore's biography, you may not see anything out of the ordinary, just her short-lived career and eventual tragic death.

07:49Her brother revealed on Reddit in 2025 that everything from her birthday to her cause of death was completely incorrect, and had been since its creation in 2007.

07:58The sources had all been cited from an erroneous book, which editors used as justification to ignore her family's attempts at correcting the article.

08:05While some things have been updated, it's unclear whether the rest of her story will ever be added.

08:09What's the most incorrect fact you've ever seen on Wikipedia?

08:12Let us know in the comments below.

08:14Together, we are creating the most comprehensive encyclopedia that has ever existed.

08:19Wikipedia.

08:28.

08:37.

08:41.

08:46.

08:47.

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