Ashland Tidings hijacked by A.I. scammers

By Taxpayers Association of Oregon
OregonWatchdog.com

OPB is reporting that the Ashland Daily Tidings has become a site run by anonymous scammers using Artificial Intelligence to write articles.   The near-150 year-old newspaper/media outlet recently closed and had their website domain name picked up by others.   By all accounts the site looks legit — but — it turns out the articles are computer AI generated.

OPB investigated and found that the reporters turned out to be fake.

OPB notes, “The mysterious emergence of AI invaders on the local news scene is a new development in Oregon, and the Ashland Daily Tidings website appears designed to hide its true operators.After Rosebud Media closed in 2023, the Daily Tidings website emerged again with a claimed staff of eight contributors, none of whom are reporters working in Southern Oregon. Two of the writers have sparse social media presences that suggest they live in South Africa. Neither responded to a request for comment from OPB, though one did share a social media post in November praising artificial intelligence. “Try to learn Artificial intelligence and don’t curse in AI. Do your hard work and Update your skills,” they wrote in a LinkedIn post.Two of the writers on the Daily Tidings website are actually correspondents for the London-based Daily Mail. Another two have actually worked as journalists in Southern Oregon. One supposed writer has no online presence as a journalist outside the Daily Tidings website.It lists eight people as working for the small Southern Oregon media outlet. The majority of the writers had their names and images stolen and did not work for the company.During OPB’s reporting on the use of artificial intelligence by the website’s operators, many of these contributors were removed from the page.OPB used various methods to track down all of the listed reporters on the Southern Oregon webpage, including searching social media and contacting former employers. After OPB began reaching out to people credited on the Tidings’ stories, more than half the staff disappeared from the page and their bylines were replaced on existing stories. Three journalists who responded to OPB’s requests for comment said they had no idea their names or images were being used to produce stories for the Daily Tidings.”

There is more to the story — read on here.

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