That is a lot of activity on Hacker News. But I wouldn't put those other sites in the same category as the WSJ. Doesn't look like any of them are even news sites.

I find it really astonishing that law enforcement is using IP geolocation to raid homes or investigate. In western Europe this would be unthinkable as police or state agencies solely rely on requesting customer information from providers (based on the IP address).

And that reminds me of this gem: https://gimletmedia.com/episode/53-in-the-desert/

It's the same issue, except that you know some geographical area.

That MinuteEarth video from 7 July was after Atlas Obscura covered it in May (http://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/null-island-is-one-of-t... ), which got mentioned on Fark (http://www.fark.com/comments/9138647/Null-Island-is-one-of-m... ) and 99% Invisible's tumblr (http://99percentinvisible.tumblr.com/post/144266916879/null-... ).

The piece at AO was in turn a repost of an article Tim St. Onge wrote in April for the Library of Congress blog, at https://blogs.loc.gov/maps/2016/04/the-geographical-oddity-o... . The article was further covered by ScienceAlert (http://www.sciencealert.com/welcome-to-null-island-the-most-... ) .

The WSJ journal is strongly based on the St. Onge's article, including re-use of the depiction of Null Island and quoting St. Onge. It does not contain anything which comes from the MinuteEarth video. It's as if the WSJ and MinuteEarth were independent works based on ideas that were floating around a few months ago, where both sites thought it was worth more coverage.

Interesting how these things move around and become part of the zeitgeist, yes? I see no need to cast aspersions upon the WSJ.

EDIT: the comments in the LoC article point to a 2009 tweet about Null Island, at https://twitter.com/chriscurrie/status/1546199025 and that nullisland.com was registered in 2008.