New Zealand sporting teams are grappling with a spate of fake, AI-generated social media articles claiming people have died or that tragedies have happened to athletes, coaches, and their families that aren’t real.
There’s been a recent increase in these fake articles. Recent posts featured former and current All Blacks Will Jordan, David Havili and Brad Weber - the latter falsely reported to have stage four cancer.
Warriors coach Andrew Webster and his family were among the latest to be targeted, with a post claiming his wife had died, when in reality, she is very much alive.
"To hear you talk like that about my wife is not very nice,” Webster said at a news conference yesterday.
“But look, I'm not on social media; I only hear about it through people like you today, but at the same time if you want to live in that world and be a part of it, you're gonna get this fake news.”
Crusaders fullback Johnny McNicholl said the posts were concerning, especially for those who did not understand the intricacies of social media.
“Especially with my parents' generation,” he said. “They're definitely believing some of those cruel statements about people getting cancer.
“I've seen one today that was Macca Springer terminated his contract for misbehaviour, which is obviously not true. He's out here playing; he's a good kid, having a laugh.
“They can be sometimes humorous, but then when you think about who's gonna be reading them and believing them, it's pretty sad, isn't it.”
Some of the posts are even about players who don’t exist. One claimed a Chiefs player called “Jack Pugh” had died.
In reality, he’d never played in Super Rugby, with the photo appearing to have been modified from that of an American football player with the same name, who died in April.
The same post has been replicated for other codes and teams, including the Warriors.
Massey University Marketing Professor Bodo Lang said the people posting these fake articles were likely seeking virality.
Read more: AI-generated 'news' pages on social media misleading thousands of Kiwis
“For most users, it would probably be to become an influencer of some sort, to have a following that's, let's say, more than a million.
“We all know the stories of Mr Beast and Joe Rogan, you know, their living is online now.
“So I think there are many, many users who wish to emulate that and create a following in whatever niche they want to carve out.”
He said, however, the posts could also carry a more malicious intent.
Professor of Marketing Analytics at Massey University Bodo Lang joined Breakfast to discuss the concerning trend. (Source: 1News)
“There are also users that maybe just want to plant malicious software on your computer,” Lang said.
“So their goal is not so much true engagement, but it's actually just you clicking on that link.
“And if 10,000 people do that, and it downloads something that then freezes the hard drive and extracts personal information, well, that's the mission they accomplished for them.”
He warned against clicking any links on these types of posts if they did not come from a verified source.
Some sports organisations have struck back, with netball premiership teams issuing a warning to fans.
“Some people will say, ‘well any publicity is good publicity’,” Tactix general Manager Kate Agnew said. “But in this case we are concerned that this is putting out a really negative environment and an unhealthy rhetoric that people are engaging with under false pretences.”
New Zealand Rugby told 1News it was working through a process with Meta.
Lang described the process of combatting these posts as a game of “whack-a-mole”.
“As soon as you report a page, it's just going to reappear somewhere else really, really quickly.
He said it was “fair to say” these posts were likely not going away.
“AI will become a driving force of many things that we will do as humans, as consumers, as shoppers. It will permeate every facet of our lives. There's no two ways about it.”
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