As an experiment, Tunde Olanrewaju messed around one day with the Wikipedia entry of his employer, McKinsey. He edited the page to say that he had founded the consultancy firm. A friend took a screenshot to preserve the revised record.
Within minutes, Mr Olanrewaju received an email from Wikipedia saying that his edit had been rejected and that the true founder’s name had been restored. Almost certainly, one of Wikipedia’s computer bots that police the site’s 40m articles had spotted, checked and corrected his entry.
It is reassuring to know that an army of such clever algorithms is patrolling the frontline of truthfulness — and can outsmart a senior partner in McKinsey’s digital practice. In 2014, bots were responsible for about 15 per cent of all edits made on Wikipedia.