Examples of AI rip-offs making their way into Google News
AI-generated SEO spam is increasingly flooding Google News and search results, making it harder to find original reporting and trustworthy information. Commenters argue this is a continuation of long‑running incentives that reward quantity over quality, now supercharged by cheap text and image generators, with knock‑on risks for misinformation, politics, and even safety‑critical domains. Some see hope in alternative search engines, human curation, and personal AI filters, but others fear the web’s signal‑to‑noise ratio is collapsing faster than institutions or users can adapt.
AI-Generated SEO Spam in Google News/Search
- Many see AI-written articles as a continuation and amplification of long‑standing SEO spam problems, not a new phenomenon.
- AI allows low‑effort paraphrasing and mass content generation, which can be iteratively optimized to rank in Google, creating a “closed loop” where AI content is tuned to please search algorithms.
- Some note Google News surfacing obvious AI rip‑offs while original sources are buried or excluded, which users interpret as “boosting” junk rather than merely indexing it.
- Others argue the core problem is derivative, low‑effort journalism; AI just exposes how replaceable much of it is.
Search Engines, Alternatives, and Curation
- Several commenters report worsening search quality on Google, especially for recipes, reviews, and technical queries.
- Alternatives like Kagi, DuckDuckGo, Brave, Mojeek, and Millionshort are discussed; some find them better at avoiding SEO spam, others say results are often worse and still drive them back to Google.
- Features like DDG “bangs” and domain blocking are praised for regaining some control, but most non‑technical users stick with defaults and don’t know such tools exist.
- Some propose a return to webrings/directories or personal bookmarks, but others recall those eras as also poor for discovery.
Information Pollution, Trust, and Society
- Many express a sense that the web is being “polluted” or “enshittified” by AI content, deepfake scams, AI influencers, and low‑quality blogspam.
- Concerns extend beyond personal browsing: AI‑tainted information might affect medicine, engineering, and public opinion, especially among less critical users.
- Others counter that misinformation and manipulation predate AI; this is a shift in degree and scale, not a wholly new threat.
- There’s debate over whether citizens can realistically become much more skeptical and source‑critical, with some calling that expectation “magical thinking.”
Impact on Journalism and Incentives
- Commenters highlight that ad‑driven, quantity‑over‑quality incentives make AI spam economically attractive.
- Some hope for new business models (e.g., micropayments, personal AI curation) or explicit “no‑AI‑written content” pledges from outlets, but these are speculative.
- A minority suggests that if AI content destroys ad value, the current system might collapse, forcing new models of curation and funding.