Most people tend to assume my fondness for toast began when I founded Toasty Software, but the truth is far simpler: I've always had an unreasonable addiction towards toast. It's simple, reliable, comforting, and surprisingly also an example for the power of misinformation.
A few years ago, way back when I was doing my GCSEs I was working on a piece of coursework for Design & Technology Pick a piece of everyday technology, and research its invention and development.
And so naturally, with me being me, I picked the toaster, a decision I would later regret more that my crumbling sleep schedule.
I started the project normally, waited a few weeks then did some research, looking at the timeline for its development and finding reputable sources and all said the same thing.
The first electric toaster was invented by Alan MacMasters in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1893 and marketed by the Crompton Company.
This wasn't just on Wikipedia and a few articles, this was believed by Governments, museums, and even technological historians and so with dozens of sources all pointing to this seemingly believable man, I build my work around it. Diagrams of his "Original Model", quotes, and even the shortcomings from alleged incidents where the heating element caused a woman's kitchen table to set on fire.
However, with then only a few days before submission, I stupidly checked to see if there was any more I could add, and instead I stumbled into a discussion that questioned the entire existence of MacMasters with more and more articles releasing saying that it was instead some hoax started as a joke a decade prior.
It wasn't some misinterpretation, he didn't build a prototype or design anything, he simply didn't exist in that context and so instead of calmly refining my work I had to go back to the beginning, every reference, every explanation all had to be rewritten from scratch.
As small or minute as this may have been it really makes clear that misinformation doesn't need to be about the current trending topics or something massive, it doesn't need to be overly convincing. All it takes is something so simple that no one would even think to question it.
Especially now where for every single event that are almost instantly hundreds of different articles saying the same thing and with the rise of AI spiel filling every site its important to think critically about everything and actually check whether its accurate
Luckily I still passed with a good enough grade to be able to move on with my life, at it gave me a (what I believe to be) interesting story to tell, as well as a lesson to actually fact check and challenge everything (No I'm not paranoid).