186

So I tried to share this innocent enough question with Facebook: Why is this program erroneously rejected by three C++ compilers?

And this is what popped up:

Wat?

And indeed, the shared post directs me to a particularly disturbing article with the same title in gawker.com.

I checked the meta tags in page source, but to my knowledge there are no open graph (og) tags hinting this slightly surprising title.

<meta name="twitter:card" content="summary">
<meta name="twitter:domain" content="stackoverflow.com"/>
<meta property="og:type" content="website" />
<meta property="og:image" itemprop="image primaryImageOfPage" content="http://cdn.sstatic.net/stackoverflow/img/[email protected]?v=fde65a5a78c6" />
<meta name="twitter:title" property="og:title" itemprop="title name" content="Why is this program erroneously rejected by three C++ compilers?" />
<meta name="twitter:description" property="og:description" itemprop="description" content="I am having some difficulty compiling a C++ program that I&#39;ve written.

This program is very simple and, to the best of my knowledge, conforms to all the rules set forth in the C++ Standard.  I&#39;ve ..." />
<meta property="og:url" content="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5508110/why-is-this-program-erroneously-rejected-by-three-c-compilers"/>

Could this be a Facebook bug, or is Stack Overflow messing with Facebook's crawlers?

15
  • 20
    I don't know, but I like it! :) Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 4:52
  • 49
    I did a view-source on the question you linked and I could not find that text anywhere in the source. However SO seems to have a CSS class called .ice-ice-baby. Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 6:24
  • 16
    THIS. IS. AWESOME. Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 13:35
  • 30
    So that's why my code isn't compiling. Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:18
  • 2
    See, this is why proof-reading is helpful. Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:29
  • 53
    Note to self: don't ever piss off a baby in Pakistan. Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 19:37
  • 15
    Happy Halloween! Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 20:28
  • 14
    Well, either something should be done about sharing links on facebook from stackoverflow, or about babies in Pakistan.. one of the two. Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 20:47
  • 3
    Perhaps you had something else in your paste buffer? Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 21:13
  • 6
    Gawker really would do anything for clicks... Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 23:06
  • 4
    Even if the issue is somewhat solved (it still posts the correct title as demonstrated in the answer below) I'd love to know what causes it... Commented Nov 1, 2014 at 13:50
  • 2
    Maybe a hash conflict somewhere in the depths of Facebook's sharing code? They must generate and store the thumbnails and snippets somewhere on their server, probably with a hashed version of the URL as an identifier. Commented Nov 1, 2014 at 16:10
  • Wow. What's with that page? I loaded it and my RAM usage went up to ~88% with ~47% swap to boot. And Chrome tried to kill the tab concerned.<(O.o)> Commented Nov 2, 2014 at 16:37
  • 5
    One more in a long list of reasons why Faecesbook should be removed from existence. Commented Nov 2, 2014 at 17:21
  • 1
    @ivarni That's to ensure that people stop, collaborate and listen. Commented Nov 3, 2014 at 1:19

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
54

I was able to reproduce this, but actually posting the question fixed the issue, causing the correct title to show:

enter image description here

2
  • 64
    curiously, if I click the little arrow in the top right, it gives me the option to "Save Baby Accused of Murder Plot..." Commented Oct 31, 2014 at 21:23
  • 103
    Well...were you able to save the baby? Commented Nov 1, 2014 at 0:46
38

Facebook seems to have fixed this, but I was able to take a picture before they did!

enter image description here

1
  • 17
    Well done, soldier. You're bound to receive the medal of honor for this. Commented Nov 3, 2014 at 0:38

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