The Herald yesterday reported on the dangers these pages present, including the experience of a grieving mother who said her story was inaccurately AI-generated.
Why is this content being made?
The Herald approached multiple New Zealand-themed page creators to ask what motivated them.
Although most remained elusive, one creator responded and spoke to the Herald anonymously.
“I think you will find that it makes for an interesting story,” the South Island-based man said.
The man, whose Facebook page has more than 100,000 followers, detailed the success story behind it, saying only a few people knew his identity.
The man – who has a day job in another industry – said he valued his privacy.
“I don’t like walking down the street and having people tap me on the shoulder and ask me business questions.”
Social media pages appear to take existing news stories, run them through AI to rewrite them, and publish them with fake images.
Asked why he created AI news content and for his reaction to criticism about fake or inaccurate stories, he said his motivation was partly financial and he hoped the AI environment could be improved without causing harm.
“Our goal really was to just become content creators and then build an online platform that we could commercialise.”
He said he created the page a few years ago and now dedicated several hours to the job daily.
The page generated a “substantial amount” of his income. He would not reveal specific figures, fearing competition from new page creators.
He created his content by finding an interesting headline then using AI to write a “discussion article” on the subject.
AI-generated “news” pages and political deepfake advertisements are swamping social media feeds and are becoming harder to detect. Photo / 123rf
“We do a wee scan over it and check it, and if things are incorrect, we get rid of it.”
He started making travel content before moving into AI news more recently, due to interest from his audience, which was made up of 70% New Zealand-based readers.
“We had no idea what we were doing when we started.”
Looking ahead, he wanted to move away from news and towards e-commerce or social media services for businesses.
AI criticisms and ‘death threats’
As the man’s page grew in popularity, he said he had faced ongoing criticism about his AI use, including “many death threats”.
He was accused of creating “AI slop” every day.
“Everyone’s using [AI] now. So we’re trying to learn how to use it. And we are learning every day … ”
The man said his page labelled each post as AI, so he was “not hiding” its use.
He claimed multiple people had reported his content to Meta, which flagged a breach earlier this year relating to an AI-generated photo of a penguin.
“Some of the pictures we had put up last year were probably pushing boundaries, so now we’re being more cautious on how we create our pictures.”
Surging AI-generated “news” pages are becoming increasingly widespread on social media feeds.
He said he now made the images as realistic as possible. If anyone connected to a story published on his page complained about the content, it would be removed.
If he generated an image of someone for a story that did not resemble the real person, this was done to protect their privacy, the man claimed.
In response to criticisms about AI news pages posting inaccurate information and fake photos, he agreed the technology could be damaging but hoped people would be more open to AI in the future.
“I know it’s going to take time for people to adopt. It’s just going to be like the internet. The internet was a scam when that came out. Now everyone’s using it.
“We learn every time something goes wrong, and we try to stay away from doing it.”
The man said he tried not to read “horrible” comments posted on his page by readers and used a moderator to weed out the worst ones.
The factual inaccuracies between the pages that post this content prolifically on Facebook differ in severity.
He rarely closed the comments section unless feedback became “too much” because Facebook penalised accounts for doing so.
The man said he had decided to cease creating AI political articles after the upcoming election.
“I’m just over it. I don’t like politics. I don’t like the way it’s portrayed in the media.”
He criticised a perceived bias in certain news organisations and claimed his page covered “all sides”.
“We don’t want to do negative stories. And that’s why we want to go away from the political stuff after this year because there’s just too much negativity in it.”
The Herald asked the Government what it was doing to reduce the potential harm caused by misleading or false content on AI news pages.
Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Penny Simmonds said Cabinet had endorsed a “light‑touch” approach.
She said the Government was following a “proportionate and risk‑based approach” – relying primarily on existing, “technology‑neutral laws”, with “targeted updates only where needed”.
“This avoids premature regulation while ensuring the right guardrails are in place to build public trust,” Simmonds said.