Alan MacMasters hoax

Not to be confused with Allan MacMaster.

The manipulated image of Alex purported to be of Alan MacMasters

In February 2012, a group of British students edited the English Wikipedia article about electric toasters and inserted the false claim that a man named Alan MacMasters invented the toaster in 1893. One of the friends created a separate article about the fictitious Alan MacMasters in February 2013 and embellished it further in the following years. The fake article was cited by newspapers and other organizations until the hoax was exposed in July 2022.

The actual development of the pop-up toaster was based on technologies and features invented between 1890 and 1920 by various people and companies.

Origins

On 6 February 2012, University of Surrey aerospace engineering student Alan MacMasters was at a university lecture on dynamics where the class was warned not to use Wikipedia as a source. Additionally, the lecturer pointed out that his friend, named Maddy Kennedy, had edited the Wikipedia article about toasters, falsely claiming he was the inventor. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}

After the lecture, Alan and his friends visited the toaster article on Wikipedia, where one of his friends, Alex, edited the article to replace the lecturer's friend's name with Alan MacMasters, claiming he invented the toaster in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1893. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

A year later, Alex contemplated the extent to which he could escalate the prank. In February 2013, he created an article dedicated to Alan MacMasters, including an image of himself manipulated to resemble a 19th century photograph, and published it on Wikipedia. Alex and other editors extended and embellished the fictitious biography in the following years. ^{[1] [2] [3]}

In the article, Alex mentioned that the product was not commercially successful. He also attributed the invention of the electric kettle to MacMasters and suggested that the toaster had contributed to one of Britain’s earliest fatal appliance fires. One fabricated anecdote recounted a woman whose kitchen table caught fire after the toaster's heating elements melted. ^{[2] [4]}

Alex intended the article as a jest; however, newspapers, encyclopedias, government agencies, and the Hagley Museum and Library in Delaware perpetuated the false story of MacMasters as the inventor. Alex then used these articles citing MacMasters as the inventor of the toaster to further propagate the false information. ^[1] A primary school in Scotland dedicated a day to MacMasters. He was nominated to appear on a £50 note by an individual who responded to a request for nominations from the Bank of England and was preselected as one of the 989 eligible names out of 227,299 nominations. ^[5] During the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, Scottish Government-funded organizations cited Alan’s story as evidence of how an independent Scotland could succeed. ^{[3] [2]}

Discovery and aftermath

In July 2022, a 15-year-old Redditor named Adam posted to the subreddit r/WikipediaVandalism, an online community dedicated to sharing instances of vandalized Wikipedia articles, revealing that the photo on Alan MacMasters' Wikipedia page was edited and not legitimate. This research was prompted after his teacher spoke about MacMasters in class and Adam looked up the article of the supposed inventor. ^[2] However, Adam was unaware that the entire article was a hoax. A viewer of the Reddit post reported their concern on the Internet forum Wikipediocracy , where users discovered the article’s fraudulent nature and alerted Wikipedia administrators, who promptly marked the page for deletion. Alex’s Wikipedia account, which he used to perpetrate the hoax, was subsequently blocked from the platform. ^{[1] [2] [3] [4]}

Alex anonymously told Wikipediocracy that he initially thought the prank would not cause much harm. He described the first time he realized the prank was harmful was when he read a book about Victorian inventors and found Alan MacMasters listed as one of the inventors. ^[2] Alan later said in an interview that he still edits Wikipedia as an apology, but remains anonymous out of fear of being banned. ^[6]

See also

• Circular reporting

References

1. Silva, Marco (18 November 2022). "Alan MacMasters: How the great online toaster hoax was exposed". BBC News . Retrieved 2 June 2024.
2. Belmont, Virginia (11 August 2022). "Wikipedia's Credibility Is Toast". Wikipediocracy . Retrieved 11 August 2024.
3. Felton, James (22 November 2022). "15-Year-Old Uncovers Major Wikipedia Toaster Hoax That Fooled the Media for Years". IFLScience . Archived from the original on 9 December 2023. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
4. Rauwerda, Annie (12 August 2022). "A long-running Wikipedia hoax and the problem of circular reporting". Input . Archived from the original on 4 September 2022. Retrieved 2 June 2024.
5. "£50 character selection" (PDF). Bank of England . Retrieved 23 November 2024.
6. fern (2024-07-14). The Weirdest Hoax on the Internet. Archived from the original on 2024-07-31. Retrieved 2024-07-24– via YouTube.

External links

• Archived article and deletion discussion on Wikipedia
• List of hoaxes on Wikipedia