A disturbance broke out after a glitch on Google Search incorrectly showed that Sam Altman, OpenAI's chief executive officer, had died.
On the 12th (local time), according to the U.S. online community Reddit and social media X (formerly Twitter), Google displayed on Altman's search results page that he had died that day.
Internet users captured the search results and shared them on social media, repeatedly pointing out that Google was exposing false information. Some joked, saying, "Altman left sub agents as survivors," and "Did the new Gemini 3.5 Pro do it?"
As the controversy spread, Google said hours later on its official X account, "Thank you for the tip," adding, "This content is no longer displayed, and this was not a manual change by Google." It added, "If people vandalize public information sources, it can affect the information shown in search results."
Google did not specify the problematic "public information source," but it is presumed to be Wikipedia. In fact, the English Wikipedia edit history for "Sam Altman" shows repeated malicious vandalism, including adding false claims that Altman was assassinated that day and changing his surname "Altman" to "Gaiman."
Wikipedia has restricted editing privileges on the entry to prevent this kind of vandalism (intentional document damage).