Google AI Falls for April Fools' Prank, Presents Fake News as Fact

Cwmbran: April Fools' Day prank news story appears on Google AI

Every year, journalist Ben Black publishes a playful fake story on his community news site Cwmbran Life for April Fools' Day. Since 2018 the 48-year-old has created a number tales, from a Hollywood-style sign on a mountain to a nudist cold-water swimming club at a local lake. In 2020, Mr Black published a fake story which claimed Cwmbran had been officially recognised by Guinness World Records for having the most roundabouts per square kilometre. Despite altering the wording of his article by that afternoon, when Mr Black searched for it on 1 April 2025 he said he was "shocked" and "worried" to find the false information being used by Google's AI tool.

Google AI falls for April Fools prank story, presents it as real news

The big picture: An April Fools' prank is all in good fun unless it is taken too seriously. A Welsh journalist discovered that internet jokes in the AI age aren't as funny. His harmless little gag demonstrates how AI picks up on new false information and proliferates it as factual. Every April 1st, Ben Black loves pulling off a prank on the readers of his community news site Cwmbran Life. The 48-year-old journalist has been spinning up April Fools' Day hoaxes over the years that range from the hilarious to the totally absurd. In 2020, he made up a story about Cwmbran setting a Guinness World Record for having the most roundabouts per square km, which took on a life of its own. A day after it went live, he had to update the article to clarify that it was an April Fools' joke. However, that didn't stop a more prominent publication from picking up the story and publishing it as "news." Even worse, Black requested the site to take the story down. It refused, but that was human error. Fast forward to 2025, and Ben was shocked to find that Google's AI Overview had used his fake story as the basis for its summary and presented it as fact. While it's not dangerous misinformation, the incident is a prime example of how easily fake news can spread, even from trusted sources. "It's really scary that someone googling 'roads in Wales' could come across my made-up story and believe it," Black told the BBC.Black also feels the incident exposes how AI represents a growing threat to small, independent publishers. While major outlets strike lucrative deals to collaborate with AI companies, he says smaller ones like his get left out in the cold as their original content gets mined and repurposed without permission. Of course, the concept of satirical news on the internet isn't new. Outlets like The Onion and The Babylon Bee have been around for ages. Large language models are likely "aware" of these well-known examples and perhaps others and treat them differently than real news. However, considering Cwmbran Life is an actual news site, the AI couldn't tell the difference and took the prank seriously. Sadly, the mess convinced Black to hang up his April Fools' Day tradition for good. Maybe developers should program LLMs to seek out further context before reporting "facts," especially on April 1st.