AI opt-out strategies, Meta's latest sneaky trick, and a "NATO for news" to fight for us all

This week's Content Aware brings you a Google Search Console crisis, a publisher's apology, and Apple vs the EU.

Published: 15:09, 05 June 2025

Corbidge comments on... AI-enabled copycats
While attention is on the big fish of AI and their wholesale use of your content to build empires, countless bedroom burglaries are taking place which are equally insulting to creators and publishers - a phenomenon made all the easier by dishonest actors using the sort of tools publishers themselves find useful. Our man-in-the-middle Rob looks at the challenge posed by old fashioned copycats using AI to steal your work and income.
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"NATO for news" to arm an industry 
Against the rapid rise of Gen AI firms jointly reshaping the world of media and entertainment, the industry response so far is still largely fragmented and reactive. At the recent Media & Telecoms 2025 Conference, leading industry names pondered a collective "NATO for News" alliance to protect copyright and assert control over AI's use of creative content. Something collective that makes the industry too big to swallow is a tantalising concept - but can business enemies agree on a solution to benefit them all?
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Listed: AI opt-out best practices
Our good friends at the International Press Telecommunications council have published new best-practice guidance on Generative AI opt-outs for publishers. It lists 12 steps that publishers should take right now to safeguard their content and place themselves on firm future legal grounds even as the very notion of copyright is a matter of fierce debate and abuse.
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Sunshine or rain in the headlines
New US research sheds light on audience trust and consumption habits, placing the The Weather Channel at the top of the most-trusted list ahead of numerous news brands. The surveys also show the stark differences between demographic groups for engagement and perception of news, and the effect a story can have on outlook and optimism - for some people, the news is always going to be bad.
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Fake books, real backlash
What do you do when your audience thinks you are giving them AI slop? After the Chicago Sun-Times published an AI-generated "summer guide" featuring a reading list of 15 books of which only five actually existed, with the rest being an LLM-birthed fever dream, it has now published an apology and explanation. Tellingly, it contains this confession: "The content wasn’t produced by Sun-Times journalists, nor was it reviewed by the newsroom prior to placement in the paper." The lesson of old is the lesson of new: check your work. As any good publisher knows, trust arrives on foot and leaves on horseback.
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And what do the authors say?
Does the widespread adoption of AI tools risk devaluing human expertise and turning complex, human tasks into shallow automation? Emine Saner asks those who are turning their back on AI.
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OpenAI doesn't like being open
A court order to preserve ChatGPT user chat logs is making OpenAI unhappy. The order came after accusations of destruction of evidence in the cases between Sam Altman's firm and news outlets suing for copyright theft. "Unfair" according to OpenAI, playing the privacy card they themselves rarely want to be beholden to. The order, being appealed by OpenAI, has caused some consternation from those who use apps leveraging ChatGPT and are now exposed to the same preservation order. Better legal minds will question whether records for tech firms were anyway subject to preservation under national security legislation and, yes, perhaps ChatGPT has always known what you ask it.
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Keyboard worriers
Got a bee in your bonnet about spelling and grammer? Grit you're teeth and try this fun/unfuriating test.
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Spies in pocket
Researchers exposed Meta's ability to secretly track Android users by bypassing privacy protections on phones. It showed that Meta copied Russian search engine Yandex in using tech to "silently listen on fixed local ports on mobile devices to de-anonymize users' browsing habits". In a rapid display of "who, me?", Meta appeared to remove most of the tracking code and script almost overnight, but likely not fast enough to stave off the inevitable lawsuits or investigations.
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Apple battles EU to keep rivals out
Apple's legal pushback against new EU interoperability rules, which require it to allow other vendors access to its tech, continues the show of tension between tech giants and regulators. The rules are meant to prevent monopoly and give end users a wider range of products and devices which can in future connect to Apple tech - so, different smartwatch makers, for example - however for now Apple is using one of the EU's top weapons against the requirement: fears over user data and privacy. The case will take years, but could conclude in a complete reshaping of the App Store and device compatibility standards.
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AI in SEO: the good and the bad
While AI claims it will transform SEO with supposedly smarter intent-focused strategies, it raises significant challenges for sites who now feel they have to cater to both search engines and also now AI algorithms which have different ways to choose what information users see, often without transparency or accountability. Search Engine Land looks deeper.
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Google search console and the missing data
Failure to capture half of conversational search queries reveals a troubling blind spot in site analytics, says an SEO researcher. While the algorithms are clearly adapting to conversational queries, the core tools businesses use to understand audiences are lagging behind, leading to missed opportunities and flawed strategies. There are only two ways out of this: improving transparency and data accuracy, or coming clean and undermining trust among digital marketers and content creators. Which one will Google choose?
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Anthropic's AI blog: when bots meet human editors
Anthropic says its new Claude Explains AI-generated blog features "human oversight" and is an interesting example of an AI company having to grapple with the same considerations publishers have to think about over what gets published. Because, laws and reputation and all that. If Anthropic's own AI publishes a load of garbage when left unfettered, is that a good advert for its tech? Nope. How do they solve it? Err... keeping humans in charge. Will it lead to a somewhat better understanding of the world in which publisher's have to operate? Maybe!
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Kids' social media ban blocked
Social media and the law make for uncomfortable adversaries. In the US, Federal Judge Mark Walker blocked parts of Florida's strict social media law for children, saying that a ban on under-14s having social accounts was an infringement on their rights to participate in debate. Meanwhile in France, authorities went direct to TikTok for action on harmful content - and got the platform to take action in rapid time. No pattern has emerged.
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