Nathaniel White killed six women in New York in the early 90s. But he's not the Nathaniel White you'll see in a Google Images search of his name.
He is also not the man who for two years appeared in an image on the Wikipedia page and was described as a serial killer, along with descriptions of his victims, including a 14-year-old and many mothers.
The man in these pictures he's not a serial killer and he's never been to New York. But his image was circulated on the Internetnetwork for years, on Wikipedia, Google, and various news outlets about the murders. One mistake led an unrelated man in Florida to live in constant fear of retribution.
It started when the Discovery program Channel “Evil Lives Here”, which aired on August 13, 2018, showed a false image of White as a serial killer. The image only appeared for a moment, but from then on it was added to Wikipedia and spread to Google Images. Until Thursday, if you Googled “Nathaniel White,” the wrong man's face would appear along with the Results search for the killer.
White filed a lawsuit against Discovery last year for violating privacy, defamation, and intentionally causing emotional distress. The complaint includes Google, Facebook, Twitter, Wikipedia Inc. many other search engines and technology companies.
Last month, a judge ruled that under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act, these companies were not responsible for what happened to White. The Discovery case is still ongoing.
White's lawyer, Charles Barfield, Reported on Motherboard that this situation was "traumatic, emotionally, and psychologically" for his client.
"His image is everywhere. She had to dress up. And in a strange way, the situation with COVID, we believe, saved his life. Wearing a mask helped in disguise ". He was once approached by a neighbor who saw the Discovery program and thought he was the serial killer.
It reminds me of the movie Brasil, if I remember correctly its name, with the moth that fell on the printer and instead of writing Patl it wrote Tatl.