Real-Life Google Horror Story

[rynling]

This is not a long story, nor is it explicit. It’s still worth hiding under a cut. Content warning for the internet being weird and upsetting.

Wikipedia has started posting graphic medical photos as illustrations on the appropriate pages.

Because this is Wikipedia, these photos are large, obsessively tagged, and very search engine optimized.

So imagine that you’re an artist, and you run an image search for “reference photo of a right ear.” Because of the medical photos that are now on Wikipedia, a search like that will return unspeakable horrors.

We’re talking about a Lovecraftian level of unspeakable. The first time this happened, I could literally feel my sanity slipping. And then it just kept happening.

So that’s why I had to blacklist Wikipedia on all my browsers. 🙃

Comments

[lassarina]

oh. Oh no. That sounds horrifying and I am so sorry you had to see it.