More Google incompetence

It shouldn't be surprising. I mean, obviously the more time and energy a company dedicates to Being Evil, the less is spent on maintaining what were historically its core functions. Still, it does surprise me how far Google has fallen. It really used to be a pretty good search engine.

Today I read a passing reference to one Zoe Quinn. I was about 70% sure that that was the name of the central figure in that "Gamergate" thing from a few years back, and that she was supposed to have been the victim of some sort of misogynistic something-or-other (I was never really very clear on the details). Anyway, I Googled the name just to make sure I was remembering correctly.

At the top of the results, before the links, was a helpful little thing with Quinn's nationality, occupation, and photo -- a photo of a dude, with a full beard!

Of course in the Current Year it is by no means beyond the realm of possibility for a dude with a full beard to call himself Zoe Quinn and claim to be a victim of misogyny, but the rest of the results made it pretty clear that Quinn is (or looks like) a woman, so I figured this was just some random Australian bloke posing with a book by Zoe Quinn.

Actually, though, it turns out to be even weirder. A big of poking around online reveals that this is Z. T. Quinn (first name Zac), a very obscure writer (no Wikipedia page) posing with his own book. Biographical information is hard to come by, but he's apparently Australian, not American, and shows no signs of ever having been a video game developer or the alleged target of a misogynistic harassment campaign.

His only connection with Zoe Tiberius Quinn is that the share initials and a surname. That was enough, though, for Google to make him the face of Gamergate and to claim that his book Sanlundia was actually written by Zoe.