Section 7.1.1: Wikipedia in court?
A murder conviction was overturned after the court learned that some
jurors used Wikipedia to research information presented in the trial.
A lawyer (not in the same case) said that one party in a case edited
Wikipedia entries to make information appear more favorable to that
party. (Dec. 2009)
Section 7.1.1: Wisdom of the fans?
Thousands of soccer fans chipped in via their Web site to buy a British
soccer team. They will make management decisions by voting on the Web.
How well do you think their team will do?
(MyFootBallClub.co.uk, Jan. 25, 2008)
Section 7.1.2: Abdicating responsibility
A trucker in Britain got his truck stuck on a small farm road after
ignoring a sign saying the road was not suitable for large vehicles.
He was unquestioningly following the directions of a navigation system.
(Other examples of navigation system errors abound. One system led a man on
a half-hour drive of hairpin turns to a dead-end at a 200-foot
drop off a cliff. Another led a man on a three-hour detour on
smaller and smaller, rougher and rougher roads. Why are errors in
such systems likely? How much responsibility should the user take?)
Section 7.3.2
By the end of 2007, the number of Internet users in China was
estimated (by a Chinese government organization) at roughly 210 million,
almost as many as in the U.S. (Jan. 18, 2008)
Return to A Gift of Fire home page.