Notes: This updated post was drafted with the assistance of AI tools and reviewed, fact-checked, and published by a human editor. The initial version was human-written.
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Photo: Digital Information World - AIgen
Editing Notes:
Multiple attempts were made to contact 404 Media to understand their position, but no clear response was received.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused by unclear phrasing in earlier versions of this post.
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404 Media’s investigation identified a series of AI-generated articles that appeared in Google News results despite existing policies designed to limit low-quality or automated material. The report documented cases where websites published AI-produced stories that closely resembled legitimate reporting, including articles that reused content from established publications or featured images with visible watermarks. Some of these pieces still surfaced in Google News, raising questions about the effectiveness of current ranking signals in filtering synthetic or repurposed content.
Google Responds to 404 Media’s Findings
In response to 404 Media’s report, Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, publicly addressed the issue in posts on X, Mastodon, and Bluesky, clarifying that Google News is not “boosting” AI-generated content.
According to Sullivan, these filters expressly ask “our systems to ignore the regular relevance ranking” and “simply show the latest content in descending order,” which may surface lower-quality results not normally prioritized. He emphasized that Google’s focus “is on the quality of content, [not its method of] production,” reiterating that mass production of low-quality AI content remains against Google’s policies.
Editing Notes:
Multiple attempts were made to contact 404 Media to understand their position, but no clear response was received.
We apologize for any inconvenience caused by unclear phrasing in earlier versions of this post.
August 4, 2025 Update: The original 2024 article was revised to improve readability.
October–November 2025 Update: Added additional details from Google Search Liaison Danny Sullivan.
December 2025 Update: Restructured post with redundant parts removed.
(Update January 2026) Fact Check: Hura Anwar’s Publishing Frequency:
404 Media, in a January 2024 article titled “We Need Your Email Address,” stated that Hura Anwar publishes articles “roughly every six minutes” and “all day every day.” To assess this claim fairly, Hura Anwar’s public publishing activity between 12–26 January 2024 was reviewed. During this period, average posting intervals were consistently measured in hours rather than minutes, and the data shows multiple non-publishing days, contradicting the characterization of continuous “all day every day” output. At no point did the observed activity approach a six-minute publishing interval. Additionally, the original version of the referenced article was evaluated using multiple AI-detection tools, including Originality AI, GPTZero, and Copyleaks, all of which indicated high confidence that the text was human-written.
(Update January 2026) Fact Check: Hura Anwar’s Publishing Frequency:
404 Media, in a January 2024 article titled “We Need Your Email Address,” stated that Hura Anwar publishes articles “roughly every six minutes” and “all day every day.” To assess this claim fairly, Hura Anwar’s public publishing activity between 12–26 January 2024 was reviewed. During this period, average posting intervals were consistently measured in hours rather than minutes, and the data shows multiple non-publishing days, contradicting the characterization of continuous “all day every day” output. At no point did the observed activity approach a six-minute publishing interval. Additionally, the original version of the referenced article was evaluated using multiple AI-detection tools, including Originality AI, GPTZero, and Copyleaks, all of which indicated high confidence that the text was human-written.
Read next: Gaza’s 7-Day Internet Blackout Is The Longest Outage Yet, Web Monitors Confirm
