AI ‘journalists’ begin to seem in Canada
OTTAWA – Quebec correspondent “Geneviève Tremblay” — who has been reporting on a number of information tales a day these days — appeared to be experiencing a glitch.
She wasn’t the one one. All of We Information’ reporters and editors appeared to be malfunctioning on Friday, sending out error messages at any time when The Canadian Press tried to ask them questions by way of chat.
That may occur when your “journalists” are — just like the digital staffers at We Information — simply pretend personas generated by synthetic intelligence.
AI has infiltrated information media in Canada and world wide. In early September, Nunatsiaq Information revealed a narrative about an AI persona posing as an Inuk journalist in Nunavut — one in all many personas used to repurpose work from professional information sources, together with The Canadian Press, for We Information.
The positioning describes itself as a “round the clock information portal overlaying Canada and the world.” However whereas it stays on-line, it seems to have been delisted from Google’s search outcomes.
In late September, the story of “Daniel Robson” emerged. Canadian information shops pulled his work from their web sites after being informed Robson appeared to not be an actual particular person.
Coverage Choices editor-in-chief Les Perreaux was the primary to sound the alarm in Canada. In a web-based submit on Sept. 24, Perreaux wrote that an editor at Türkiye Immediately contacted him to ask him to vouch for Robson — and he realized he couldn’t.
“The important thing second the place my coronary heart sank was when the Turkish journalist informed me that Daniel Robson refused to do a video name,” Perreaux mentioned in an interview.
Perreaux mentioned he reviewed the correspondence and materials Robson despatched and noticed indicators of AI product. He mentioned the larger situation was the try to deceive information editors and readers, whereas AI merely acted as an “accelerant.”
“AI is unquestionably a part of the story, but it surely’s a smaller half than the deception half the place there was a human behind this, pretending to be somebody he’s not, or a minimum of refusing to be who he actually is,” he mentioned.
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In a narrative revealed on Sept. 29, Türkiye Immediately mentioned the aim of the Robson persona appears to be to assault Moroccan dissidents.
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We Information isn’t hiding its use of AI and clearly labels its “journalist” profiles — together with images of what seem like human beings — as AI generated.
The AI personas at We Information, which embrace grey-haired editor-in-chief “Gordon Halloway,” repurpose worldwide, nationwide, provincial and native information in additional than 100 cities throughout Canada.
The Canadian Press did try to achieve a human behind the location, however the contact e-mail tackle listed on the location bounced again.
When the AI detection firm Originality.ai analyzed simply over 200 articles by “Geneviève Tremblay,” it recognized them as AI-generated.
Originality.ai CEO Jon Gillham mentioned the articles have been rewritten variations of tales revealed by professional information media shops like CBC, CTV, CityNews, World and the Montreal Gazette. The Canadian Press additionally discovered its personal reporting among the many sources.
“I feel industrial-scale AI slop (websites) like this one run the chance of degrading the belief within the information,” Gillham mentioned.
The phenomenon isn’t restricted to Canada. On Sept. 17, the U.S.-based web site Futurism revealed a narrative about Brown Brothers Media, an organization Futurism mentioned purchased up professional information websites and flooded them with AI-generated content material — and claimed to drag 50 million web page views a month.
Ahmed Al-Rawi, a professor of stories, social media and public communication at Simon Fraser College, mentioned websites with pretend AI journalists are attempting to monetize content material.
“Quite a lot of gamers, whether or not they’re unhealthy gamers or simply profiteers, people who find themselves actually attempting to get cash, are exploiting the arduous work of actual journalists with the intention to repackage information content material,” he mentioned.
Al-Rawi mentioned social media platforms “also needs to be blamed for enhancing the recognition of those pretend web sites.”
Western College assistant professor of journalism Chris Arsenault mentioned it’s tough to control these web sites.
“You may get a free or very low cost AI mannequin to pump out this type of nonsense, and you’ll all the time discover anyone to host it,” he mentioned. “So it’s a really arduous factor to legislate round or to answer when it comes to efficient coverage.”
Paul Deegan, president of the publishers group Information Media Canada, mentioned whereas information content material is roofed by copyright, it’s very tough for publishers to sue.
“It’s costly, it takes a very long time, whether or not or not they’re actually in Canada,” he mentioned. (We Information says it’s primarily based in Hong Kong.)
Information Media Canada is looking on the federal authorities to state publicly that it doesn’t intend to introduce a broad exception to copyright regulation for textual content and information mining.
AI Minister Evan Solomon’s workplace mentioned in a media assertion that “Canadians should know when the knowledge they devour has been generated or altered by AI.”
“Generative AI generally is a helpful and highly effective device, however Canadians shouldn’t be deceived by content material that impersonates journalists or conceals the way it was created,” the assertion mentioned.
Solomon’s workplace pointed to a recently-concluded session on AI transparency and mentioned it acknowledges “the issues raised by journalists and different creators about consent, compensation, attribution and transparency when their work is used to coach AI programs.”
There could also be no silver bullet to unravel the issue, however Arsenault mentioned there may be one antidote: old style reporting.
He famous the “Daniel Robson” case got here to gentle as a result of “of an old-school editor in Turkey who had the temerity and good sense to only, God forbid, decide up a phone and do some primary journalism, simply do some due diligence on a would-be contributor.”
Futurism reported on Sept. 30 that the Brown Brothers Media websites now seem to have stopped publishing and have been delisted or considerably downranked by Google.
In Canada, We Information additionally seems to have been delisted. When The Canadian Press looked for the web site utilizing Google’s search engine, it obtained no outcomes — however the website instantly popped up as the highest end result on one other search engine.
Google didn’t instantly reply questions on whether or not it has delisted We Information from its search outcomes, when it could have executed so, and whether or not that was the results of information protection about its AI “journalists.”
A spokesperson mentioned in an announcement the corporate’s insurance policies for search and Google Information “prohibit producing low-value content material at scale to sport our rating programs.”
“Whereas we typically don’t touch upon particular person websites, we act on coverage violations to maintain 99 per cent of search visits spam-free,” the spokesperson added.
Deegan mentioned it’s in Google’s curiosity to “ensure that when folks go to Google for info that they’re getting correct info … For them to de-rank and take away these websites which might be clearly concerned in theft is sensible.”
However Arsenault questioned whether or not Huge Tech firms ought to be “taking part in corridor monitor and being arbiters of reality.”
“They’ve a job to play in taking down stuff that’s clearly unfaithful … However I don’t know if we would like them making these editorial judgments.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first revealed Oct. 3, 2026.
