Sushant Singh Rajput’s tragic and untimely demise has left his fans devastated but also equally furious over the late actor’s treatment by Bollywood industry’s bigwigs. From rallying for CBI enquiry into the actor’s death to debating on nepotism, social media has seen a flurry of such hashtags and Twitter trends over the past few weeks.
The latest one was when fans brought up the actor’s Wikipedia page and suggested that it had revealed the actor’s death even before it actually happened. Yes, you heard that right.
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Several tweets by netizens claimed that the Wikipedia page was updated at 8.59 am, when the police actually reached his Bandra residence around 12:30 pm on 14 June, 2020. A fan tweeted, “How this can be possible? According to police Sushant singh talked to his sister at 9am, and on Wikipedia someone updated at 8:59am that he committed su!c!de. How is this possible?”
How this can be possible? According to police Sushant singh talked to his sister at 9am, and on Wikipedia someone updated at 8:59am that he committed suicide!! How is this possible? #AmitShahDoJusticeForSSR pic.twitter.com/bbsEbGteFF
— Piyush Dutta (@iamPiyushDutta) June 30, 2020
How could this be possible.A person adding to his Wikipedia page that he died by suicide at 9.08 am.That means someone already knew it before his death that he will commit suicide..
There is something fishy..CBI needs to investigate..#AmitShahDoJusticeForSSR pic.twitter.com/xCNZY8ESR2— Shruti Jain (@Shrutiiijain) June 29, 2020
8:59 am 14th June Sushant’s Wikipedia was updated & mentioned that he is committed suicide!!! Who was this astrologer ???@MumbaiPolice please don’t tell us that he updated his Wikipedia before his death, cause user id is avialable there… #cbiforsushant @RoopaSpeaks pic.twitter.com/3zVgYhQGEd
— Team Sushant Shingh Rajput 👊🏻 (@DjJnf2) June 29, 2020
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Fact check
Before we jump to any conclusion, we must understand how things work on Wikipedia. It is an open-source encyclopedia where anyone can make changes in the information provided. The editors check and confirm the changes, and if they find any problem with it, they reverse the difference and, in some cases, ban the user. Because Wikipedia is an open-source website, it is not considered to be an authentic source of information by academia.
According to the “View History” section of Wikipedia, someone started editing Sushant’s page at around 8:55 AM on 14th June 2020 and by 8:59 AM, the Wikipedia user added the information that the actor has died by su!c!de.
The IP location of the editor is 139.5.242.88 that can be traced to New Delhi.
Sushant’s page was indeed updated at 9 am, like mentioned in the tweets, but there is a crucial detail which the fans missed. Wikipedia updates on Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), which is approximately 5.30 hours behind the Indian Standard Time (IST). Hence, if the Wikipedia page was updated at 9 am UTC, the page was actually updated around 2.29 pm IST, which is when news of Sushant’s demise broke.
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