Scamformers - robots in disguise

Bots in trenchcoats, OpenAI sends chats to the world, Meta says rules are for you not them, Reddit becomes AI's best friend, and some weighty beach reading - all in this week's Content Aware.

Published: 15:11, 07 August 2025

Corbidge comments on... publishing's glorious comeback
While AI search and slop is crowding the moat of content businesses and looking to dismantle the castle walls, publishers should focus on the real prize: quality content and genuine relationships with their audience to build loyalty and allowing them to have spaces that they trust. Our content cannon Rob discusses why chasing algorithms is exhausting, but investing in great journalism isn't.
Read

AI bot's Perp walk
Shock! Perplexity is accused of scraping content from sites which explicitly said "No AIs allowed!" and had set bot protocols and firewalls to block the firm. Bot foe Cloudflare says AI snoops used the old Scooby Doo ploy to bypass site protections to keep the content funnels flowing despite de-authorisation, naming and shaming Perplexity. Perplexity, as happy to snoop its own users as it does other people's content, dismisses it all by basically branding Cloudflare a doddery granddad who doesn't know how the web works. Maybe they wrote that bit themselves. Would such a scenario if true also risk Perplexity inadvertently missing out on making payments under its vaunted Publishers Program set up to woo content owners? Let's hope not.
Read

OpenAI's sharing "slip"
Speaking of data sharing, ChatGPT/OpenAI managed to send troves of user chats to search engines via a new share feature - perhaps hoping lots of new users might flood the service to force positive chat statements about their company into Google results. Only issue was, the warning text that private chats could be sent to the world was so obscurely and faintly placed that all sorts of sensitive info was scooped up without anyone realising. It's all OK now though, says someone with a cool X handle - OpenAI CISO DANΞ says the company pulled the feature and is now somehow cleaning up Google and other search engines. He was formerly CISO at Palantir so can perhaps be excused for the novelty of removing data.
Read

AI giants face EU's new rules
In an era when AI is evolving faster than regulators can blink, the EU has drawn a line in the sand with its AI code of practice, to which tech firms broadcasting their intentions can sign up. Now we know who is in, and who's out, the likes of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Anthropic and even Grok have pledged to play by rules on transparency, safety, and copyright. Not so Meta, which basically gave the bird to even looking like it thinks rules are worth reading. With the AI Act closing in, those who skip the code might not have a good time when it finally comes around.
Read

Hype meets regulations
Ludicrous AI marketing claims are under the hammer after regulators started demanding honesty and clarity in the marketing of AI capabilities. With initiatives such as the FTC's "Operation AI Comply", the message is clear: transparency is not optional, but mandatory.
Read

Summer SEO lessons
This summer, semantic SEO is making a quiet comeback in giving pages and content real structure and meaning in a world where machines still need to make sense of your pages. SEO magician Barry Adams discusses how semantic markup is not only good practice, but also a competitive edge.
Read

ONA's open AI conundrum
Unsure how best to flag the use of AI in content to audiences? Or even if you should? The Online News Association compared different ways of presenting AI usage declarations, and their impact on trust. There's big variations in results but notable is that the mere mention of AI reduces trust - even when that mention says "AI was not used". ONA is the world's biggest digital journalism organisation and the research webinar is free and very useful. We'll be at ONA25 in New Orleans next month, so do come and say hi.
Watch

Make the most of your beach bar break
Looking for work reading on your summer hols to make the bar bill tax deductible? Our friends PugPig have you covered with their 2025 Media App Report giving a front row seat to what's really working in mobile media today. The PugPig team gathered insight from 140 publishers and 400 apps, looking at AI experiments to the rise of audio, new App Store rules and the power of newsletters. It's a cheat sheet for any publisher app strategy.
Read

Free online safety speech
After a clash with French prosecutors, Elon Musk's X is now crying foul play over the UK's Online Safety Act. X claims the law is about censorship not child safety, with strict enforcement and mega-fines for anyone who doesn't comply. The clash has sparked political fireworks, turning a safety law into a full-blown opinion shutdown.
Read

CPB signs off after 60 years
A non-profit which helps fund more than 1500 local radio stations across the US is shutting down after nearly six decades, following its funding being pulled. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting is winding down after Congress U-turned on funding commitments at President Trump's behest. The CPB was a lifeline for many independent rural outlets, many of which are expected to shut as a result. Poynter shares more details.
Read

The unexpected powerhouse fuelling AI models
Reddit has surged ahead as the top source for AI models due to its vast stores of user-generated content. While ChatGPT has a preference for Wikipedia, other AIs rely heavily on Reddit's human conversations to learn. Press Gazette has the scoop.
Read

Another must read by WAN-IFRA
What do you get when you gather 120 news leaders from around the world and ask them how they're navigating the chaos of modern media? You get a playbook, and that's exactly what WAN-IFRA did. After this year's WAN-IFRA Congress in Krakow, WAN-IFRA released a practical playbook packed with ideas and smart strategies into key areas which shape the future of news.
Members read here

YouTube's AI test raises privacy concerns
YouTube is rolling out AI-powered age checks in the US, attempting to guess who's under 18 based on viewing habits and search patterns. Will YouTube and Google endeavour to make the system work well? Hmm. Over-flagging over 18s as "unknown" and thus needing to hand over their ID, would be a massive win for Google should it plan to become the dominant verifier of IDs in the future. Privacy experts are not a fan, but probably nor are those running all the fake sites popping up to "check your ID" as government Big Brains normalise sending your biometric details to who knows where. Ironically, the under 18s are probably best at spotting the scam sites - if only they could tell us!
Read

SEO's new frontier
So what of the “legit” web traffic coming to sites via AI - regular users just trying to find things. Here, AI is showing gains, with a significant 527% surge in AI-driven visits early in 2025. ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Gemini are quietly steering users to digital doorsteps, especially when it comes to legal, finance, and health sites. Charming Google is still the top priority, but effort to woo AI assistants and chatbots is starting to show some reward. Search Engine Land knows more.
Read

AI joins the newsroom, but with a human editor on speed dial
AI is clocking into newsrooms, but they still need oversight from a grumpy editor. Tools powered by RAG (retrieval-augmented generation) are speeding up tasks such as data analysis but while these bots are helpful, as you might expect they still hallucinate, oversimplify, and fumble details. Both the newsrooms loving the help, and the sceptics saying they do more harm than good, can agree on one thing: AI needs an editor.
Read