> Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated that a season one episode of Stranger Things had been edited retroactively to remove a shot of Jonathan photographing Nancy while she was changing.
This merely seems to create new opportunities for doctoral theses in Film Studies.
That's what sequels/remakes are for. Ninja edits of the originals are disgusting, especially in streaming services, when you can't expect people to have the content archived.
> Viewers who still have physical copies of Stranger Things season one noticed something odd having gone back for a rewatch on Netflix: a scene wherein one-time weirdo Jonathan Byers (Charlie Heaton) takes spying, lewd snaps of now-lover Nancy (Natalia Dyer) from a bush has been erased on the platform. And it's not the first time the Duffers have gone back to the cutting room after the fact.
> There's a difference between correcting factual errors (or typos) and changing the story to better fit current political climate.
It's a good thing that in this case the factual error was the assertion of "changing the story to better fit current political climate."
Without that fake bombshell (that they could have validated for $XX dollars by just buying the DVD) what is the difference between an article correction and a minor plot continuity correction?
Well, no, there isn't. What's important depends on what you're trying to learn. If what you're interested in is where the incorrect claim came from, then silently editing the GQ article would be exactly the same kind of revisionism as silently changing an episode of Stranger Things.
But of course, that's not the difference here. GQ made their correction correctly: with a notice attached to the new content describing what the old content said and what changes were made. That is very different from silently editing history; that is why GQ's correction is much less problematic than the hypothetical editing of Stranger Things. (It would be better to present the old content itself, rather than a description of it, but the notice is still hugely less problematic than a silent retroactive change.)