Why send a false website typo report?

Post date: 2021-03-06 12:16:22

The highly popular website of a respected international organisation received a message from someone who appears to be an established journalist/translator. He reported a couple of embarrassing typos (similar to mixing up there/their) on one webpage. Staff could not see the errors and requested a screenshot. The journalist sent one which showed the typos... but they aren't on the live site and, according to the page revision log, have never been there. Is there an explanation that makes any sort of sense both technically and in terms of human behaviour?

Yes, I know that Chrome can edit page source on the fly - and screenshots can be doctored. But the person reporting this has won awards for his journalism and his messages appear to have no ulterior motive other than to get the 'error' corrected. What could he be hoping to achieve by claiming an error exists when it clearly does not?

He might not be a real journalist, perhaps his LinkedIn page with 500 contacts is a fake, but that simply makes the hoax more elaborate for its near zero payoff. If you get off on mildly confusing people, there are many lower effort ways to achieve a greater effect.

I suppose a browser extension could theoretically introduce random typos while browsing but I can't find evidence such a thing exists or come up with any reasonable set of circumstances that would lead to it being installed surreptitiously.

None of the staff who edit page content have the technical skills or access permissions to fake the page revision log and anyway there would be no consequences for introducing such an error beyond a friendly reminder from the boss to always run copy past the proofreader. Also the two errors are (a) so blatant it's very unlikely any of the editorial staff would make them and (b) identical, but in areas of the page managed by two separate teams.

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