THOUSANDS SCAMMED BY FAKE OBITUARIES: GOOGLE, AD FIRMS ACCUSED OF PROFITING FROM HEARTBREAKING SPAM!
"In the Age of Artificial Intelligence, Dubious Digital Obituaries Undermine Trust"
Trust—the oft unseen yet omnipresent foundation of human interaction, has been under siege in the digital realm, affected by tech's darker side in a peculiar and unsettling way: false obituaries.
Thousands of families across the United States have been coming to terms with the public mourning of their not-deceased loved ones, as sham obituaries spawned by presumably AI programs flood Google's search results. These deceptive pieces, besides causing distress, seemingly siphon clicks and generate ad revenue for their publishers.
Non-profit organization Check My Ads' latest report lays bare a web of profiteering that traces back to ad exchanges, agencies managing transactions between brands wanting to advertise and websites who play host. The spotlight falls on websites like HausaNew.com.ng, once a disseminator of American death notices and obituaries riddled with misinformation. These sites exploit digital advertisements hosted on their platforms to profit.
The cycle of misinformation continues with SarkariExam.com, another obituary website that peppers the digital landscape with poorly constructed and erroneous obituaries, making a tidy profit through the running of accompanying ads. The exploitative nature of these websites erodes the trust families place in reliable public announcements and further entrenches public skepticism about personal information online.
The implications of these fabricated obituaries extend past mere morbid fascination; it underlines a troublesome trend of AI-enabled deceit. Because of the volume and rapidity with which AI can generate content, the scale of potential misinformation disseminated can be immense, with substantial potential harm to information ecosystems and public trust.
Scrutiny on ad companies like TripleLift reveals their ads have been featured on the likes of SarkariExam.com. In response, the firms have pledged to revise their terms of use, explicitly barring AI-generated obituary spam. Yet will this deter digital deception at its roots, or simply prune unwanted branches?
Meanwhile, internet colossus Google finds itself in a difficult position. Though it has promised to curb visibility of such obituary spam sites, the Check My Ads report suggests Google might have profited from this sham content, hosting ads on these notorious spam sites.
That said, Google's stance against violation of their publisher policies appears firm, with claims of action against the content and removal of a number of ads from the offending sites.
As our world shifts increasingly into the digital space, the emergence of AI falsifications like obituary spam is a sobering reminder of the ease with which trust can be broken in a data-driven age. This disturbing trend underscores the imperative for vigilant monitoring and stringent policy action from all stakeholders. Ad agencies, companies like Google, watchdog bodies, and the general public need a united front against such deceptive practices.
Unquestionably, the perils of artificial intelligence exploitation are complex and multilayered. While clamping down on unscrupulous practices is of the utmost necessity, a broader focus should be centered on maintaining and reinstating the endangered trust in the digital ecosystem. The future hinges on acknowledges tech's dark side, and learning to consistently stay a step ahead of it.