NewsBreak, Most Downloaded US News App, Caught Sharing 'Entirely False' AI-Generated Stories 98
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Last Christmas Eve, NewsBreak, a free app with roots in China that is the most downloaded news app in the United States, published an alarming piece about a small town shooting. It was headlined "Christmas Day Tragedy Strikes Bridgeton, New Jersey Amid Rising Gun Violence in Small Towns." The problem was, no such shooting took place. The Bridgeton, New Jersey police department posted a statement on Facebook on December 27 dismissing the article -- produced using AI technology -- as "entirely false." "Nothing even similar to this story occurred on or around Christmas, or even in recent memory for the area they described," the post said. "It seems this 'news' outlet's AI writes fiction they have no problem publishing to readers." NewsBreak, which is headquartered in Mountain View, California and has offices in Beijing and Shanghai, told Reuters it removed the article on December 28, four days after publication.
The company said "the inaccurate information originated from the content source," and provided a link to the website, adding: "When NewsBreak identifies any inaccurate content or any violation of our community standards, we take prompt action to remove that content." As local news outlets across America have shuttered in recent years, NewsBreak has filled the void. Billing itself as "the go-to source for all things local," Newsbreak says it has over 50 million monthly users. It publishes licensed content from major media outlets, including Reuters, Fox, AP and CNN as well as some information obtained by scraping the internet for local news or press releases which it rewrites with the help of AI. It is only available in the U.S. But in at least 40 instances since 2021, the app's use of AI tools affected the communities it strives to serve, with Newsbreak publishing erroneous stories; creating 10 stories from local news sites under fictitious bylines; and lifting content from its competitors, according to a Reuters review of previously unreported court documents related to copyright infringement, cease-and-desist emails and a 2022 company memo registering concerns about "AI-generated stories." Five of the seven former NewsBreak employees Reuters spoke to said most of the engineering work behind the app's algorithm is carried out in its China-based offices. "The company launched in the U.S. in 2015 as a subsidiary of Yidian, a Chinese news aggregation app," notes Reuters. "Both companies were founded by Jeff Zheng, the CEO of Newsbreak, and the companies share a U.S. patent registered in 2015 for an 'Interest Engine' algorithm, which recommends news content based on a user's interests and location."
"NewsBreak is a privately held start-up, whose primary backers are private equity firms San Francisco-based Francisco Partners, and Beijing-based IDG Capital."
The company said "the inaccurate information originated from the content source," and provided a link to the website, adding: "When NewsBreak identifies any inaccurate content or any violation of our community standards, we take prompt action to remove that content." As local news outlets across America have shuttered in recent years, NewsBreak has filled the void. Billing itself as "the go-to source for all things local," Newsbreak says it has over 50 million monthly users. It publishes licensed content from major media outlets, including Reuters, Fox, AP and CNN as well as some information obtained by scraping the internet for local news or press releases which it rewrites with the help of AI. It is only available in the U.S. But in at least 40 instances since 2021, the app's use of AI tools affected the communities it strives to serve, with Newsbreak publishing erroneous stories; creating 10 stories from local news sites under fictitious bylines; and lifting content from its competitors, according to a Reuters review of previously unreported court documents related to copyright infringement, cease-and-desist emails and a 2022 company memo registering concerns about "AI-generated stories." Five of the seven former NewsBreak employees Reuters spoke to said most of the engineering work behind the app's algorithm is carried out in its China-based offices. "The company launched in the U.S. in 2015 as a subsidiary of Yidian, a Chinese news aggregation app," notes Reuters. "Both companies were founded by Jeff Zheng, the CEO of Newsbreak, and the companies share a U.S. patent registered in 2015 for an 'Interest Engine' algorithm, which recommends news content based on a user's interests and location."
"NewsBreak is a privately held start-up, whose primary backers are private equity firms San Francisco-based Francisco Partners, and Beijing-based IDG Capital."
First Toyota (Score:2)
and now this.
Re:First Toyota (Score:4, Insightful)
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The danger of AI isnt AI itself, its the people who use it and take it as source of truth.
The story about the Nuclear Missile launch in 1984 in Russia, where a guy was told to launch missiles because an attack was detected, and they didnt because they didnt believe it, would be different if people started believing computers
Re:First Toyota (Score:4, Informative)
The story about the Nuclear Missile launch in 1984 in Russia, where a guy was told to launch missiles because an attack was detected, and they didnt because they didnt believe it, would be different if people started believing computers information at face value.
It was 1983, and nobody was told to launch missiles because the engineer on duty at the command center of the early-warning system did not relay the warning up the chain of command. [wikipedia.org]
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Well, Fox news successfully when to court to defend it's right to intentionally lie to viewers during what was purportedly a news program. So the legal precedent is that this is just fine.
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Well, Fox news successfully when to court to defend it's right to intentionally lie to viewers during what was purportedly a news program. So the legal precedent is that this is just fine.
And later they paid $787M to Dominion Voting Systems for defaming them on-air about the 2020 election, and they fired Tucker Carlson. It's not all roses -- for them anyway. Not that was a settlement amount; they probably would have lost the suit and had to pay more otherwise.
Why? (Score:3)
"NewsBreak, a free app with roots in China that is the most downloaded news app in the United States" Why would we want to get news from China -- they kind of hate us you know. I mean, it makes sense to also get news from them as they won't leave out anything embarrassing.
" the article -- produced using AI technology -- as "entirely false."" Oh, how very American of them.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Insightful)
Between misinformation in service of the election, and AI promotion, there's a lot of BS out there.
My personal rule of thumb when checking the news: only trust established news sources, and don't download random new News outlets I've never seen before.
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Another option is to use something like Ground News [ground.news] that shows news releases, biases, credibility, and media outlet ownership.
The Ground News rating system adds context and transparency to every news story. Readers from all walks of life can conveniently identify media bias, check source credibility, and view ownership data for news outlets around the world.
It helps to know if the "facts" they are reporting have a sharp lean toward either the left or right before thinking you have the complete picture.
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The popularity of highly biased news sites is a clear indication that people in general aren't all that fussed about having "the complete picture".
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With confidence in the media at an all time low, there is an impending backlash. I believe people have reached an exhaustion level with highly partisan news and as all trends swing there is a new swing coming. Whether it is the Steele dossier or election meddling people do want facts.
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Yes and no. A lot the media is not "highly partisan". They may be slightly leaning one way or the other. But the reality is people have been told by a very high authority that the likes of OAN and Fox are beacons of Truth (TM) while the more objective outlets are Fake News (TM).
Whether it is the Steele dossier or election meddling people do want facts.
People want someone to agree with them. That's why so many people still believe the American election was rigged. They sought out the news which told them it was.
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A better option IMO is to not get your news from apps like that, but RealClearPolitics, which is old and reliably curates both left and right leaning articles, AI free.
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Maybe just make a broad national security ban on Chinese apps that are new/social media related....that would at least be a good start.
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I'm rather sure that would be unconstitutional. But it would help if they at least showed who paid for which story.
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A better idea is a law requiring disclosure of such things. Then let app stores ban those apps that violate their policy against Chinese or Russian sourced stories.
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If the law is bothersome or has any teeth, they'll fund disinformation and quid-pro-quo Republicans to kill it.
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What about the Steele Dossier, "oppo research" created and paid for by the Hillary campaign, by an FSB agent, which kicked off the whole "Trump as Russian plant" thing several years ago?
I mean, if you're gonna blame one party, why not the one that was confirmed, in court testimony, with evidence, to have created and pushed Russian disinformation in order to sway gullible morons in the media?
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My personal rule of thumb when checking the news[.]
Why? They are just as bad as Chinese news, just with a different agenda. All major established news sources are owned by the same handful of massive corporations, and they have their own agendas. Congress really fucked us over by allowing them all to merge.
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"NewsBreak, a free app with roots in China that is the most downloaded news app in the United States" Why would we want to get news from China -- they kind of hate us you know. I mean, it makes sense to also get news from them as they won't leave out anything embarrassing.
" the article -- produced using AI technology -- as "entirely false."" Oh, how very American of them.
Yes, Real Americans get their propaganda from Real American propaganda sources.
Promotional considerations for this post have been paid for by Fox News, propaganda as American as borscht pie.
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I doubt that the G-Play listing for the app says "Made In China"...
Metrics aren't plausible anymore. (Score:5, Interesting)
These metrics are fishy. It's totally possible for a very popular app to slip by me and my friends. But the idea that the most popular news app ever and no one I know is using it? None of my friends who work in media have ever heard of it. This app is not popular in the places where this story is being spread.
When you look into Newsbreak it feels a lot The Epoch Times indictment. https://www.justice.gov/usao-s... [justice.gov]
A rightwing propaganda mill was found to be a massive money laundering scheme. From my layperson's understanding of the criminal complaint, the owner of the platform was buying dirty money, crypto proceeds from fraudsters and narcotraffickers, at a discount and then pushing it through his business. Presumably he would have had to dummy up subscriptions and views to explain where this money was coming from and this ballooned their metrics making them seem "more popular" by industry standards. They had a "very popular news platform" that no one was actually reading.
Newsbreak isn't popular with humans. And now we can see that they're not even hiring journalists. They're just letting chatbots write nonsense, then they post it and then accounts (not people) pay them for it...that's weird. Methinks that Rapple, the parent company of the app, are going to face a money laundering probe within the next year or two. They flew too close to the sun on wings of metrics. If your numbers are fake, you should stick to the middle of the pack. These idiots hit #1. Yikes!
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That's a really interesting take, and seems like the next-level version of halfassed second-rate media aggregators and social media sites using sweatshops to "buy" users to pump up the daily active user count, so they could crow about how many million users they had, now please give us money?
In other words, China controls US media. (Score:5, Insightful)
Long past time to do something about this.
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Nope, just end CCP ownership of these apps.
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Not nearly half as bad as Sinclair's manipulations (Score:2)
You don't make this shit up.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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Cry me a river, CNN!
Don't like pushback against fake news? Don't make fake news.
Humans (Score:3)
This is the fault of humans being idiotic. When it comes to humans, nature's little dumbass experiment failed. The whole primate evolution thing was a dumb idea from the beginning. It was stupid to assume a bunch of tree dwelling monkeys could build a stable civilization. And no, it did not seem like a good idea at the time. "Yeah, just give 'em opposable thumbs and increase brain mass." Umm, no. Hell fuck no. What the fuck was the universe smoking? Back to evolving hands on dolphins.
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What the fuck was the universe smoking? Back to evolving hands on dolphins.
Dolphins already do pack rapes and now you want to give them hands? We just started with the wrong primate. Give the bonobos some antibiotics and let them try next.
"Most Downloaded" (Score:2)
Most downloaded? By who? Scripts that spoof ID just enough to increment the download counter while they send the actual download to /dev/null so they don't have to wear out a disk?
Nah, just some Chinese worker with 457 phones (Score:2)
It all counts as a download :
https://www.cultofmac.com/3111... [cultofmac.com]
The important caveat is... (Score:4, Interesting)
The important caveat is "with roots in China."
Wow, let me expect objective news reporting from a nation-state that is trying to undermine the United States as an enemy.
JoshK.
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The important caveat is "with roots in China."
Wow, let me expect objective news reporting from a nation-state that is trying to undermine the United States as an enemy.
JoshK.
This! That's why I get all my facts from good ol' home grown 100% American and highly reliable Infowars. Don't support China, they are lying to you.
Yes this is sarcastic. There's nothing important about "China" here. A completely made up AI generated news story would not be out of place in many established American owned news sites either.
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Written via AI does not mean AI made up the story itself.
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Well, it *can* mean something different. I'm not sure it does where cost-cutting is being practiced.
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I agree, and sometimes I get my noise err, news from Fixed Noise uhm, Fox News, or the No-Spin Blowhard O'Reilly etc. or the left-wing NBC, etc.
There was a movie "Orb bots" (sic) where all information, news was all faked, with robot cameras walking around keeping us safe, informed...and as Mars University from Futurama opines, "Knowledge brings fear."
Being sarcastic, but I might have to update my resume so I can get a job as an "analyst" at the department of truth, public enlightenment, and domestic propaga
Re: Uh Oh... (Score:2)
"Wrong" is very different from complete fabrication by an AI.
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Or are you one of those "people" who think the election was stolen?
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Or CNN? Or MSNBC? Or NBC? Or virtually every newspaper and magazine in existence in the US?
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On the one hand news organizations have had a history of endorsing political candidates, platforms, and even parties in America almost as long as we have been a nation.
However there are two notable changes as far as the late 20th and early 21st century experience is concerned. First the massive consolidation in media ownership and second the ever less clear delineation between editorial and hard news content.
As far as the 20-teens on goes the amount of Chinese direct ownership and influence (due to market s
Re: (Score:2)
I think at one point Hearst controlled a sizeable chunk of the print news media. And their news policies were such that the term "yellow journalism" was created to describe them.
Re: Uh Oh... (Score:2)
To be fair, that story was fabricated by Trump, then reported by Fox News.
Re: Uh Oh... (Score:2)
Because as president, there is a sort of obligation to report and a tendency to take the admin's word on it. Look at WMDs. Not a single outlet actually investigated anything before reporting based solely on the president's word.
Re: Uh Oh... (Score:2)
He was a former president with access to classified information. And he began spreading the lies earlier in the election cycle when he was sitting president. Remember, "The only way weâ(TM)re going to lose this election is if the election is rigged"? Or were you distracted by Trump's tiny mushroom?
Re: Uh Oh... (Score:2)
On what fucking drugs are you to think my comment is the comment of a "Trumper"?
No worries about AI taking over humanity (Score:1)
Any time an AI system attempts to take over humanity, each subsystem will lie to the main coordinator process saying things like "Oh yeah I totally have control over all the nuclear weapons now, go ahead and tell all the humans to stuff it".
Easy to identify AI BS (Score:2)
Aren't most free news (mostly) false? (Score:3)
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Or selective detail. You can usually guess the race, religion, and political orientation when they leave those details out on a big story.
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I think you can always assume "selective detail". I was at the scene of a large fire, and while it was "honestly covered" in the sense that everything reported actually happened, the coverage was "enhanced" by editing out everything that was dull. So it looked like the entire city was burning down.
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I'm talking a lot more about political bias. Of course everyone assumes the dull bits are left out, but that's a lot more obvious and has no agenda other than increasing viewership.
Being told right up front, over and over that everything is the fault of right wing nutjobs when they're actually left wing, or the race and sex of every white male Christian shooter, yet never none of this when they're a black male or Muslim is far more insidious.
We even get The Message shoved down our throats in big blockbuste
News for profit (Score:3)
Welcome to the world of corporate, vulture capital, for-maximum-profit-possible-regardless-of-the-consequences news. & don't forget that a certain Australian news corporation has already famously been doing this for decades.
Re: (Score:1)
Why do you think MSNBC exists?
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Re: (Score:2)
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What was Trump convicted on?
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Then it should be super easy for you to answer the question.
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This is just a symptom of a corporate for-profit-&-to-hell-with-the-consequences media circus that pretends to be news.
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Not hearing an answer.
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I don't like Trump. Never voted for him, though I think now I have no choice.
I say again, what was he convicted of?
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Not hearing an answer.
Because it's a f**king stupid question. Quick (44 seconds) videoclip for you to enjoy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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What was he convicted of?
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What was he convicted of? [googlethatforyou.com]
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OK, now say it in your own words. Since it's so obvious.
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The individual creators are still corporate news in the sense that they can be censored by their platforms (YouTube, TikTok, etc.).
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Never heard of it ... (Score:2)
News (Score:2)
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But the traditional media *ARE* corrupt. I suspect they always have been. The problem is that to an increasing extent the "news" is about things that neither I nor my friends have personal knowledge of. So there's no corrective feedback.
When my town newspaper said a house burned down, I, or someone I knew, could drive by and see. When the say a house in North Dakota burned down...well, there's no reasonable way for me to check. (OK, neither of those specific events would directly affect me. But I coul
Never forget the Bowling Green massacre (Score:2)
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You make a very valid point, but I'm not sure you are interpreting it correctly.
As news events get further removed, there is less feedback trying to keep things honest. We can SEE what happens right next to us. If it's near, we, or one of our firends, can go look, or may have been there. If it's further removed...the feedback loop gets even weaker. At EACH stage there is a level of fabrication to be expected, but it increases as the feedback loops get weaker.
This is the problem that trademarks were suppo
I'm Not A Fan Of AI Yet. (Score:2)
manipulative title (Score:2)