AI websites steal authors’ identities

The former authors of an Apple blog have become victims of identity theft. The Unofficial Apple Weblog was actually closed in 2015. However, a new owner took over in 2023. With the help of AI, he has since published articles under the names of authors who no longer work there.

Christina Warren is a Senior Developer Advocate at software developer GutHub. Before that, she worked as a journalist for several years – including for The Unofficial Apple Weblog. But although she has not written for the blog since the end of 2009, articles have been appearing there under her name again since July 2024.

AI websites: Operator steals identity of authors

Warren shared screenshots of it on threads, as The Unofficial Apple Weblog was taken over by a new operator who stole her identity. One of the screenshots shows that several articles appeared under the name “Christina Warren” in July 2024.

Another screenshot shows her name next to a photo that was apparently generated by artificial intelligence and appears in a list of names of other former authors. How 404 Media reported, their photos are also not real pictures.

Meanwhile, the “About Us” page states that “Web Orange Limited” bought the blog from “Yahoo IP Holdings LLC” in early 2024 “without its original content.” However, the earlier articles were “carefully rewritten.” Comparing the original articles from an archive of Engadget However, with the new versions, it quickly becomes clear that this is obviously poorly reformulated AI content.

SEO spam: Google punishes low-quality content

We were unable to reproduce Christina Warren's screenshots. The reason for this is that the new operators have simply changed many of the authors' names. The author pictures have remained the same.

Web Orange Limited describes itself on its website as an “online advertising agency” from Hong Kong. The company apparently also manages the blog iLoungewhich was temporarily shut down and apparently recently reactivated.

There, too, AI content appears to be presented as articles by real people. Web Orange Limited apparently hopes to achieve top rankings in Google searches with inferior content in order to generate more clicks and thus advertising revenue.

The problem: Google is now taking targeted action against low-quality AI content. Many articles by The Unofficial Apple Weblog and iLounge are therefore likely to perform poorly in searches.

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