When Florida reporter Kate Payne stumbled across a local news site called The South Florida Standard, something about it felt off. She’d never heard of the outlet before and didn’t know any of the journalists who were listed on its staff, even though their bios touted long careers in Florida journalism. The articles the site was publishing seemed like very normal local news stories, but they were often plagiarizing the reporting of other Florida news outlets. The coverage didn’t have any obvious political agenda or bias. And Kate couldn’t see a way the site was making any money; there were no ads or ways to subscribe.

TL,DL: it’s a fake website, designed and run by AI, in order to influence the information put out by chatbots. Basically SEO for AI. The end goal: to launder the reputation of a bunch of convicted white collar criminals.