{"id":494846,"date":"2026-06-25T12:43:33","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/494846\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T12:43:33","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T12:43:33","slug":"ai-news-creator-defends-fake-content-after-public-backlash-and-death-threats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/494846\/","title":{"rendered":"AI news creator defends \u2018fake\u2019 content after public backlash and death threats"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Why is this content being made? <\/p>\n

The Herald approached multiple New Zealand-themed page creators to ask what motivated them. <\/p>\n

Although most remained elusive, one creator responded and spoke to the Herald anonymously. <\/p>\n

\u201cI think you will find that it makes for an interesting story,\u201d the South Island-based man said. <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The man \u2013 who has a day job in another industry \u2013 said he valued his privacy. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t like walking down the street and having people tap me on the shoulder and ask me business questions.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SocialSocial media pages appear to take existing news stories, run them through AI to rewrite them, and publish them with fake images.<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur goal really was to just become content creators and then build an online platform that we could commercialise.\u201d <\/p>\n

He said he created the page a few years ago and now dedicated several hours to the job daily.<\/p>\n

The page generated a \u201csubstantial amount\u201d of his income. He would not reveal specific figures, fearing competition from new page creators. <\/p>\n

He created his content by finding an interesting headline then using AI to write a \u201cdiscussion article\u201d on the subject. <\/p>\n

\"AI-generatedAI-generated “news” pages and political deepfake advertisements are swamping social media feeds and are becoming harder to detect. Photo \/ 123rf<\/p>\n

\u201cWe do a wee scan over it and check it, and if things are incorrect, we get rid of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe had no idea what we were doing when we started.\u201d<\/p>\n

Looking ahead, he wanted to move away from news and towards e-commerce or social media services for businesses.<\/p>\n

AI criticisms and \u2018death threats\u2019<\/p>\n

As the man\u2019s page grew in popularity, he said he had faced ongoing criticism about his AI use, including \u201cmany death threats\u201d.<\/p>\n

He was accused of creating \u201cAI slop\u201d every day.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone\u2019s using [AI] now. So we\u2019re trying to learn how to use it. And we are learning every day … \u201d<\/p>\n

The man said his page labelled each post as AI, so he was \u201cnot hiding\u201d its use.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome of the pictures we had put up last year were probably pushing boundaries, so now we\u2019re being more cautious on how we create our pictures.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SurgingSurging AI-generated “news” pages are becoming increasingly widespread on social media feeds.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it\u2019s going to take time for people to adopt. It\u2019s just going to be like the internet. The internet was a scam when that came out. Now everyone\u2019s using it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe learn every time something goes wrong, and we try to stay away from doing it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The man said he tried not to read \u201chorrible\u201d comments posted on his page by readers and used a moderator to weed out the worst ones.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe factual inaccuracies between the pages that post this content prolifically on Facebook differ in severity.<\/p>\n

He rarely closed the comments section unless feedback became \u201ctoo much\u201d because Facebook penalised accounts for doing so.<\/p>\n

The man said he had decided to cease creating AI political articles after the upcoming election.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m just over it. I don\u2019t like politics. I don\u2019t like the way it\u2019s portrayed in the media.\u201d<\/p>\n

He criticised a perceived bias in certain news organisations and claimed his page covered \u201call sides\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to do negative stories. And that\u2019s why we want to go away from the political stuff after this year because there\u2019s just too much negativity in it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Herald asked the Government what it was doing to reduce the potential harm caused by misleading or false content on AI news pages.<\/p>\n

Science, Innovation and Technology Minister Penny Simmonds said Cabinet had endorsed a \u201clight\u2011touch\u201d approach.<\/p>\n

She said the Government was following a \u201cproportionate and risk\u2011based approach” \u2013 relying primarily on existing, \u201ctechnology\u2011neutral laws”, with \u201ctargeted updates only where needed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis avoids premature regulation while ensuring the right guardrails are in place to build public trust,\u201d Simmonds said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Herald yesterday reported on the dangers these pages present, including the experience of a grieving mother who…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":494847,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[74,365,534,95,14798,9556,363,364,8172,4057,9539,40124,26250,3054,634,99524,3039,2550,37483,191,14046,138541,1073,20494,111,43,139,69,384,3109,2687,1072,145,26452,24358,3608],"class_list":["post-494846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-after","tag-ai","tag-amid","tag-and","tag-anonymous","tag-artificial","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-backlash","tag-behind","tag-content","tag-creator","tag-creators","tag-criticism","tag-death","tag-defended","tag-defends","tag-even","tag-fake","tag-here","tag-hurt","tag-intelligencegenerated","tag-media","tag-mounting","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-people","tag-public","tag-saying","tag-social","tag-technology","tag-threats","tag-wave","tag-were"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494846","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=494846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/494846\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/494847"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=494846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=494846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=494846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}