Earlier this week, news broke that Google Search objectively sucks. Now, an additional report suggests another core part of Google’s web-crawling services is infested with AI garbage. That’s right: Google News also sucks.
To be a fly on the wall at Google this week, am I right? According to 404 Media, Google News is “boosting sites that rip-off other outlets by using AI to rapidly churn out content.” The outlet concluded Google News’ ranking system is both “gameable” and not adequately prepared for moderation “in the age of consumer-access AI.”
Per 404 Media’s report, journalist Joseph Cox found several websites with plagiarized material appearing on Google News, including a Star Wars piece with the phrase “war of stars.” In one case, an Examiner.com writer appearing on Google News had published 500 articles in 30 days, seemingly by “taking work from other outlets and using AI to reword them.” 404 Media confirmed that Examiner.com is now using AI to republish articles without permission.
“Sometimes it doesn’t perform well by answering out of context text, therefore, my writer proofread [sic] the content,” Examiner.com representative Nabeel told 404 Media. “It’s an experiment for now which isn’t responding as expected in terms of Google Search. Despite publishing 400+ stories it attracted less than 1000 visits.”
CBC News, Heavy.com, Distractify, and Watcher.Guru were all targeted by plagiarized articles appearing in Google News search results.
Google seems … indifferent about AI
For the record, Google doesn’t seem concerned about the emergence of AI-generated content on Google News, as long as content creators aren’t trying to exploit Google News’ algorithm. “Our focus when ranking content is on the quality of the content, rather than how it was produced,” a Google representative told 404 Media. “Automatically-generated content produced primarily for ranking purposes is considered spam, and we take action as appropriate under our policies.”
Granted, Google uses an algorithm for search ranking that rewards “original content that demonstrates things such as expertise and trustworthiness,” 404 Media reported, paraphrasing Google’s statement. But it remains entirely unclear whether Google can stop the “cat-and-mouse” SEO game taking over its Google News service. Further research may be required, but it seems like Google News is doomed to decline from spammers, just like Google Search.
In the meantime, you might want to start collecting RSS feeds for your favorite websites again. We’re entering a dark age for the internet, one where Google News may soon be useless.
(feature image: FreshSplash/GettyImages)
