--- title: "MSN Fired Its Human Journalists and Replaced Them With AI That Publishes Fake News About Mermaids and Bigfoot" description: "MSN peddled a story about Grimes and Elon Musk based on a fake tweet. Now, as it turns out, that was only the tip of the iceberg." date: "2022-12-02" modified: "2022-12-05" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/msn-is-publishing-more-fake-news" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Future Society" tags: - "fake news" - "microsoft" - "misinformation" --- # MSN Fired Its Human Journalists and Replaced Them With AI That Publishes Fake News About Mermaids and Bigfoot ![MSN peddled a story about Grimes and Elon Musk based on a fake tweet. Now it's boosting another article that claims a "dark beast" was spotted on Mars.]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* Earlier this month, we [reported]() that the Microsoft-operated news site *MSN* had run a clearly bogus story claiming that Claire "Grimes" Boucher had publicly called out ex-boyfriend Elon Musk on Twitter for not paying child support. The tweet the story based its claims off was an obvious fabrication, but that didn't stop the *Inquisitr* from publishing it, or *MSN* from distributing it to a much wider audience. It turns out that was only the tip of the iceberg in *MSN*'s sloppy propagation of patently fake news. Take its affinity for *Exemplore*, a hokey paranormal and conspiracy news site that peddles tales of cryptids, signs of Atlantis, and magical crystals. Here are a few recent — and clearly preposterous — *Exemplore* articles that *MSN* has syndicated to its vast readership: -"[Fishermen Catch Mermaid Creature in Their Nets]()" -"[Woman Films Bigfoot Jumping Out of a Tree in California]()" -"[Party Stops as Giant UFO Flies Directly Over It]()" -"[Mars Rover Appears to Catch 'Dark Beast' Roaming the Surface of Mars]()" -"[Someone Swears They Caught a Biblically Accurate Angel Floating in the Sky Over LA]()" Needless to say, if any of these stories were remotely credible, they'd have completely upended the scientific establishment. Instead, the source material for each of these sensational headlines is invariably a grainy and unconvincing video that does nothing to convince us that mermaids, bigfoot, angels, or aliens are real. While *Exemplore's* headlines on *MSN* are blatantly ridiculous, others, like the Grimes story, are more insidious in their plausibility. A cursory examination of the *MSN* comments section under Grimes-Musk affair shows that many readers were easily fooled. Futurism reached out to *MSN* for comment regarding both the Grimes story and the many *Exemplore* stories and received no response. After we published this story, MSN deleted all the hoax articles — but without a retraction note or anything else documenting the removal. Is it *Exemplore*'s right to run clickbait garbage? Sure, and maybe its readers have fun suspending their disbelief, like the readers of supermarket tabloids in decades past. Believing in bigfoot isn't exactly harmful, although it probably does indicate a weaker-than-average grasp on reality. But there's no excuse for *MSN*, a media giant with the extraordinary resources of Microsoft behind it, to be amplifying — and monetizing — this ridiculous and inaccurate content. Its audience is vast, with the analytics service Similarweb [estimating]() that it attracts nearly a billion readers per month. Furthermore, *MSN* wields enormous SEO power that pushes its content to the top of search results, oftentimes superseding the original publication. If by happenstance a reader Googles something that resembles one of *MSN's* many fake headlines, a search engine will return *MSN's* republication of a story while sometimes omitting the original, lending it undue credibility. Many in that immense audience will see lazy and false stories by *Exemplore,* the *Inquisitr* and other bottom-tier publishers alongside other legitimate outlets syndicated by *MSN*, like *Bloomberg*, *The New York Times*, and *The Daily Beast.* The effect, inevitably, undermines the good work done by hardworking and ethical publishers, rewards the nonsense published by low quality content farms, and undermines the public's faith in science and tech journalism. As such, *MSN*'s seemingly nonexistent editorial standards illustrate the perils of the contemporary media industry. In particular, recent years have seen Microsoft embrace an increasingly callous and cynical strategy toward the site: in 2020, for instance, it gutted *MSN* by firing dozens of workers, including journalists, editors, and other production staff, vowing to replace them with automated systems instead. "I spend all my time reading about how automation and AI is going to take all our jobs, and here I am," one fired *MSN* staffer [told *The Guardian* ]()at the time. "AI has taken my job." That anonymous staffer imparted a prescient warning: that though the human team had employed close editorial guidelines to vet the material that appeared on *MSN*'s site, the new automated system would likely struggle to bring the same level of nuance and skepticism. *MSN* makes [lofty promises]() that there's still "human oversight" over the stories it syndicates, but given the desultory deluge of fake nonsense it appears to run constantly, it seems very unlikely that the site's remaining skeleton crew is accomplishing much at all. And with its dwindling human staff, fewer still are left to hear readers' concerns, effectively erecting a brick wall that imposes a worrying opacity. Requests for comments go unanswered, and *MSN* publishes more bogus stories all the time. Microsoft's end goal, it seems, was to automate its news distribution system, while cutting costs in the process. To that end, Microsoft may have been successful, but in the process has poisoned the well of a news reading public. That would be worrying at any widely read news aggregator. But *MSN* isn't just popular; it's the default source of news for many Windows users. Open a new tab on Microsoft's Edge browser and it lands you on an *MSN* hub. And if you still use Internet Explorer for some reason, *MSN* is the default home page of that, too. Hell, even the Windows Start Menu will show you its articles. It's even hooked into competitors' systems, picking up untold new pageviews on Google News. In sum? It's yet another cautionary tale about the growing corporate hunger to offload decision making to flawed AI systems that eliminate important jobs, exercise poor judgment with little oversight, and generally make society worse for the humans still living in it. **More on MSN:** *[MSN Fires Journalists, Replaces Them With AI]()* ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()