A fact error made by a Jacksonville TV station made Internet headlines everywhere today.
The news that Pedro Bravo, a former Santa Fe student who is charged with the first-degree murder of his friend, former UF student Christian Aguilar, might have used Siri to help him hide the body went viral in hours.
Time magazine, Gawker, Buzzfeed, Huffington Post, Mashable, Business Insider and Newsweek were among the publications to run the erroneous information.
As Gainesville Police Detective Matthew Goeckel testified, the image of a Siri search asking “I need to hide my roommate” was a screenshot. It was taken on Sept 2, 2012, 18 days before Aguilar went missing.
The photo was pulled up in a cache of photos, along with a dark meme, Goeckel said.
Bravo had an iPhone 4, which does not have Siri. His provider was Verizon Wireless, not AT&T, as seen in the screenshot.
Efforts on Twitter by various members of the media, as well as GPD spokesman Officer Ben Tobias, resulted in factual updates to many of the stories.
The majority of news sources covering the Bravo trial — with the exception of the Alligator and The Gainesville Sun — mainly watch the trial from a video feed in another room and not in the courtroom itself.
A Siri search found in the Internet cache from Pedro Bravo’s computer.
