Earlier this week, PCWorld published a roundup of Windows 12 rumors translated from PCWelt that does not meet our editorial standards. We’re deeply embarrassed by it, and I personally apologize that the article was published. It should not have been, but we’re keeping the article live (with an editor’s note at the top) so it remains in the public record.
Windows Central published a response detailing its errors. Thanks for keeping us accountable, guys — genuinely. In the same spirit of accountability, I want to explain how this happened, and what we’re doing to ensure a mistake like this never occurs again.
Let’s start by discussing how PCWorld handles translated articles, and then I’ll dive into the issues with the article itself.
It seems crazy to me for journalists to trust machine/AI translated articles enough to use as a source in their own articles.
I’ve always seen them as things to treat as unreliable, but something to use when there’s no other options available and to get a gist of what it might be about.
If using them as citation I’d need a native speaker to confirm content before being confident enough to include it if I were a journalist.