We’ve Now Found More than 700 AI-Generated ‘News’ Sites
PLUS: Navalny targeted with false claims in the wake of his death, China has not banned Coke, and AI advice for lawyers
Welcome to NewsGuard's Reality Check, a report on how misinformation online is undermining trust — and who’s behind it.
Today:
False claims about Russian dissident Navalny, even after his death
Sewer soda saga: Claim about Coke is not the real thing
Another mass shooting, another “false flag” claim
Citation Imitation: A lawyer is sanctioned for citing AI
And more…
Today’s newsletter was edited by Jack Brewster, Eric Effron, and McKenzie Sadeghi.
AI Content Farm Tracker: 713 Sites and Counting
Artificial Intelligence content farms are taking over the internet, and NewsGuard analysts track their spread. Read more about AI content farms, and how they are proliferating:
1. Even in Death: Russian Dissident Navalny Sparks Conspiracy Theory
By Eva Maitland and McKenzie Sadeghi
Far-right and pro-Kremlin sources are painting the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny as a puppet of the West who sought money from the UK’s spy agency to launch a coup.
What happened: Soon after news broke that Navalny died in a remote Russian prison in the Arctic, social media users and commentators circulated a video claiming to show Navalny had solicited millions of dollars from the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service MI6 to fund a coup in Russia. And they say that they have video evidence to back their claim.
Here’s the video:
A closer look: The roughly one-minute, black-and-white video shows two unidentified men chatting at a restaurant while apparently being secretly filmed.
One man is heard saying, “If we had more money, we could expand our opportunities ... If somebody would spend, I don't know, ten, twenty million dollars a year on supporting this, we would see quite a different picture.”
Low-quality sites, including the Gateway Pundit (NewsGuard Trust Score: 30/100) and The Intel Drop (Trust Score: 7.5/100), claimed that the footage showed Navalny in a covert meeting with an MI6 agent requesting $10 million to $20 million to stage a coup.
At least one key figure in the Donald Trump camp embraced the hoax: “It’s horrific when a political opponent dies in jail. But it’s also never good to be caught on camera attempting a coup in your country with a foreign intel service,” former Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos posted on X.
Actually: The video is old and doesn't even feature Navalny.
The clip actually shows Vladimir Ashurkov, executive director of the Navalny-founded Anti-Corruption Foundation, in a conversation more than a decade ago with an employee of the UK embassy in Russia.
The video makes no mention of financing a coup, but rather, shows the two men discussing general fundraising efforts.
How the false claim originated: Russian state-run news outlet RT (Trust Score: 20/100) first published and reported on the video in a February 2021 article, stating then that the footage was recorded by Russia’s security agency, the Federal Security Service (FSB), in 2012.
At the time, RT identified the two men as Ashurkov (not Navalny) and “James William Thomas Ford, then Second Secretary for political affairs of the UK embassy in Russia.”
NewsGuard did not find any evidence confirming the identity of the purported UK embassy employee alleged by RT to be an MI6 agent.
2. Not New Coke: Social Media Users Claim China Labeled Soda ‘Sewage Cleaner’
By Sara Badilini and Virginia Padovese
A rumor bubbling up on social media claims that China reclassified Coca-Cola as “sewage cleaner.”
What happened: Social media users are claiming that China has banned Coca-Cola for human consumption and has gone so far as to reclassify the American soft drink as a “sewage cleaner.”
“In China, Coca-Cola will be sold as a sewage cleaner, and the Coca-Cola soft drink produced by the American Coca-Cola Company will be transferred … into the category of sanitary liquids recommended for cleaning pipes,” stated a Jan. 24 Facebook post from a user who goes by Tracy Allen.
A closer look: According to this post, the Chinese Central Committee for Food Quality — which does not appear to be an actual agency — issued the ban after 75 people supposedly died following an experiment in which people supposedly drank Coca-Cola three times a day for six months.
The post went on to say that Coca-Cola turned out to have “positive properties,” namely, “in water and sewage installations as an effective means to clean sewer and sanitary pipes in bathrooms, kitchens.”
This claim then circulated on X, Telegram, and TikTok, and was translated into Italian, French, and Spanish. It was also picked up by Finnish, Zambian, and South African social media users, garnering thousands of views. One Telegram post shared on @TheTruthSeekersChannel had more than 6,100 views as of Feb. 16, 2024.
Watch one of the TikTok videos advancing this claim here:
Actually: There is no evidence that Chinese authorities ever conducted a safety experiment on Coke, let alone that China has banned the popular soft drink.
Asked about the claims regarding a Chinese ban of Coke, Coca-Cola’s vice president for global strategic communications, Scott Leith, told NewsGuard in a February 2024 email: “This is a false claim. No additional comment from us.” The Coca-Cola website in China continues to list all of the company’s beverages, including Coca-Cola. A search of news media around the world found no evidence of the supposed experiment or ban.
Tricks of Their Trade: The false narrative appears to be similar to an article published in 2018 on a satirical Russian site called Panorama.pub titled “In China, Coca-Cola will be sold as a pipe cleaner.” The posts that circulated in January and February 2024 echo parts of the satirical article, including the details about the deadly experiment.
Do you work in Trust and Safety for a technology company, in brand safety for advertising or otherwise counter misinformation as part of your job? Find out about NewsGuard’s weekly Risk Briefings, a more detailed briefing for professionals. Click here.
3. No, Taylor Swift Was Not Behind the Kansas City Mass Shooting
By Sam Howard
Another mass shooting in the U.S., another conspiracy theory claiming it was staged.
What happened: At least 23 people were shot, one fatally, at the end of the Kansas City Chiefs’ Super Bowl victory parade on Feb. 14. The same day, social media users began baselessly speculating that the shooting was an apparent “false flag.”
Blaming Taylor Swift: False flag claims are commonplace after mass shootings. What made last week’s narrative unique was that some suggested that Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce and his girlfriend, pop star Taylor Swift, could have been in on the hoax.
What they said: In an X post published the day of the shooting, a conservative commentator known as The Patriot Voice noted accurately that Kelce had previously called for “more strict gun laws” in the U.S. The post added, “Fast forward to today, and there is a MASS SHOOTING at the Chiefs Super Bowl parade in Kansas City THAT HE IS ATTENDING where two are killed [sic], and many more injured,” the post continued. “That ladies and gentlemen, is called PREDICTIVE PROGRAMMING at its finest. … Just wait until. @taylorswift13 chimes in.”
Another X user named Online Shogun wrote on Feb. 14: “is this a false flag so that Taylor comes out for gun control next?”
Actually: The Kansas City Police Department says “a dispute between several people” — not the machinations of Kelce or Swift — prompted the shooting. Police announced on Feb. 20 that two men have been charged with second-degree felony murder in the case.
4. One Last Thing: AI’s Phantom Precedent
Here’s some free legal advice: Don’t cite an AI-generated content farm in court documents.
What happened: A New York lawyer is facing sanctions for citing non-existent legal cases that appear to have been made up by Al. This mirrors a similar lawyer screw-up that drew another New York judge’s wrath in June 2023.
The news, first reported by New York Law Journal (Trust Score: 100/100), underscores NewsGuard’s warnings about AI content farms flooding the internet with seemingly credible, yet entirely fabricated information.
The attorney didn’t use ChatGPT or another language model. Instead, he cited an unreliable AI-generated news website known for concocting cases.
Big picture: As the graphic at the top of this Reality Check shows, NewsGuard has identified more than 700 AI content farms. Every lawyer should avoid citing these as a reliable source.
Produced by co-CEOs Steven Brill and Gordon Crovitz, and the NewsGuard team.
We launched Reality Check after seeing how much interest there is in our work beyond the business and tech communities that we serve. Subscribe to this newsletter to support our apolitical mission to counter misinformation for readers, brands, and democracies. Have feedback? Send us an email: realitycheck@newsguardtech.com.