You Can’t Hide Dumb Mistakes on the Internet

Microsoft made a blunder in a promotional Web page about a Macintosh user who supposedly switched to a Windows-based PC. The accompanying photo of a woman, it has been learned, is of a model — and the picture taken from a stock-photo database. When word of this gaffe rapidly spread around the Internet, Microsoft removed the page. But, as we all know by now, you can’t hide dumb mistakes in the Internet age (especially if you’re a giant company that lots of people love to hate). According to Dave Winer on his weblog, not only had a bunch of people grabbed screen-shots of the page, but Google cached it. Once published, the damage is done and there’s no reversing it.

There’s a journalistic lesson here. When you see something newsworthy, controversial, and/or wrong, immediately grab a screen shot or a copy of the page before its owner has a chance to take it down or change it.