Shortly after learning composer Maurice Jarre died, an Irish undergrad concocted a cheesy quote from the deceased, and posted it to Wikipedia. News outlets around the world cherry-picked the quote and ran it without first doing a fact-check.

Now at first, I have to confess, this struck me as kind of odd. Your spouse calls you to tell you about an earthquake at your house, a potentially catastrophic natural event, and the first thing you say is, “Was it on Twitter?”

Nicholas Carr: How many tweets does an earthquake make?.