Google Updates Guidelines to Punish Sites That Use Fake Bylines and AI-Generated Headshots

Last month, the news site Futurism published an investigation into Brown Brothers Media, a company that has attracted millions of page views per month by creating AI-powered content mills from struggling news sites. One of the company's founders has close ties to Ghislaine Maxwell, who was involved with the late Jeffrey Epstein.

Brown Brothers Media achieved success by inventing fake journalists, often with fraudulent credentials and personal histories, and using their bylines to produce thousands of SEO-optimized articles on various publications. Many of these pieces were either plagiarized or based on made-up personal experiences, providing little value to readers.

According to data reviewed by Futurism, the operation primarily sourced its audience from Google. Initially, Google did not comment on the investigation but subsequently suppressed Brown Brothers Media sites from its platforms, including Search and Google News. Brown Brothers Media subsequently ceased publication. Recently, Google updated its guidelines to explicitly prohibit the use of fake bylines and AI-generated headshots, stating it will no longer prioritize sites that engage in such deceptive practices.

Previously, Google's rules for creating helpful, reliable, and people-first content included the following guidance: "If you're clearly indicating who created the content, you're likely aligned with the concepts of E-E-A-T [experience, expertise, authoritativeness, and trustworthiness] and on a path to success." "We strongly encourage adding accurate authorship information, such as bylines to content where readers might expect it."

However, the updated guidance now includes a strongly worded paragraph under that one: "Avoid using deceptive authorship information. Fabricating creator profiles (such as using AI-generated headshots, made-up names, or false credentials to make content appear as if it was written by human experts) is a form of deception. Any form of deception makes a page untrustworthy to both users and our automated quality systems, and is a signal of a low-quality page."

This move comes in response to recent reporting on content mills like Brown Brothers Media, which have been caught using fake bylines to attract readers. In Canada, one publication embarrassed itself when its nonexistent reporters malfunctioned, producing error messages. Another publication was caught plagiarizing work under the name of a fabricated Indigenous journalist.

Similar schemes have been uncovered in Florida and Rhode Island. It remains unclear whether Google's crackdown on fake bylines will be effective in a media ecosystem facing an existential crisis. Google has embraced AI at a deep level, which has crowded out links to original reporting in favor of error-laden AI summaries, threatening the survival of independent journalism.