I got a bit of a shock yesterday after posting my entry on Black-necked Stilts at Bear River. When I received my entry by email it was accompanied by a warning from Google that it contained a malicious link to a Wikipedia article.
While looking up information about Black-necked Stilts on Google’s Bard I copied a part of a line that said that stilts are“colonial nesters” with a link to Wikipedia where that information could be found.
In the end, I didn’t quote the line directly but paraphrased it and took out the link to Wikipedia — at least I thought I did. I deleted the blue highlighted word and typed in my own words.
Apparently, the link stayed though it doesn’t appear anywhere on the page I entered in WordPress. I’m not sure how to get rid of a link that doesn’t even appear on the page. In an abundance of caution, I went back and deleted the whole section — but I have no way of knowing if I actually managed to delete the link.
This whole incident raises so many questions. First of all, why would Google’s Bard include a link to a site that Google itself says is “suspect”? I know they warn you that you need to check the “facts” they use, but that’s really not the same as embedding a link to a site that they consider “dangerous,” or at least suspicious.
Second, does Wikipedia really contain links to sites that may mislead you or trick you into downloading dangerous software? If so, why the heck aren’t they policing their links?
Finally, if you delete a linked word, how can you be sure that the accompanying link has actually been deleted? If the linking word has been deleted, how can a reader click on that link to go to that site?