In February 2012, a group of British students edited the English Wikipedia article about electric toasters and inserted the false claim that a man named Alan MacMasters invented the toaster in 1893. One of the friends created a separate article about the fictitious Alan MacMasters in February 2013 and embellished it further in the following years. The fake article was cited by newspapers and other organizations until the hoax was exposed in July 2022.
The actual development of the pop-up toaster was based on technologies and features invented between 1890 and 1920 by various people and companies.