The Sift: AI slop takeover

October 27, 2025

Artificial intelligence Celebrities/influencers Health/wellness Journalism Misinformation

An educator's guide
to news literacy

Oct. 27, 2025

In this issue

AI slop takeover | Wellness influencers | RumorGuard slides

Daily Do Now slides

Don’t miss this classroom-ready resource.

Top picks

Here are the latest news literacy topics and tips on how to integrate them into your classroom.

A human and a robot sitting across from each other. The robot is pointing to a play button on a computer screen between them. Above them is a text bubble that says AI and a checklist. Below them is a pause button and a video play bar.

AI-generated videos are flooding online spaces.

1. ‘AI slop’ amplifies confusion online

It’s hard to avoid “AI slop” that’s rapidly permeating the internet.

“AI slop” is low-quality synthetic content designed to grab attention and earn money online — and it often spreads misinformation.
Fake videos: When scrolling Instagram reels, 15 out of 20 videos online are now AI slop, according to internet culture researcher Aidan Walker. The best-performing AI slop videos play on strong emotions, like fear, anger or sympathy.
AI lacks oversight: Tech companies are largely failing to flag or label AI-generated posts on their platforms. The Washington Post confirmed this by uploading the same AI video to eight different platforms and only one — YouTube — disclosed to users that it was AI.

💬 Discuss:

AI slop can be hilarious or disturbing — but is it also harmful? Why or why not?
What potential impacts could AI slop about current events or public figures have on real-world situations?
If it were up to you, what kinds of guardrails would social media platforms and AI companies themselves put around the technology?

💡 Idea: Use the “AI slop” slide in Week Seven of the Daily Do Now resource for a short video and additional classroom-ready discussion prompts.

⭐ NLP Resources:

“What to know about OpenAI’s Sora” (NLP TikTok)
“Introduction to Algorithms” (Checkology® virtual classroom)
Infographic: “6 things to know about AI”

🔗 Related:

Video: “Jake Tapper creates AI videos to highlight the risks” (CNN)
Opinion: “Where does Wikipedia go in the age of AI?” (Financial Times)
“Teenagers struggle to tell if videos are real or fake as AI floods social media” (ABC Australia)

2. Local news sources continue to shrink

In the past year, 136 newspapers shut down — or more than two newspapers a week, according to “The State of Local News 2025” report published by Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism last week. More report highlights:

Newspaper closures: “News deserts,” or counties with only one or no local news organizations, have hit an all-time high. Most of the papers that closed in 2025 were small or family owned. About 50 million Americans live in news deserts.
Less traffic to news sites: In the last four years, web traffic to the largest 100 American newspapers has declined by 45%.
Long-term trend: Local news outlets have been declining for decades. Since 2005 the U.S. has lost nearly 3,500 newspapers.
Bright side: There are more than 300 local news startups that have launched across the country over the last five years.

💬 Discuss:

Where can people who live in news deserts find credible information about local events? In what ways can social media community groups fill the news void? In what ways could these groups go wrong (e.g., spread inaccurate information)?
What kinds of topics or “beats” do local news outlets cover?
How might the loss of local news sources impact small or rural communities?

💡 Idea: Use the “News Decline” slide in Week Seven of the Daily Do Now resource to explore a map of news deserts.

⭐ NLP Resource:

“Practicing Quality Journalism” (Checkology)

🔗 Related:

3. Wellness influencers sharing health misinfo

Which is more exciting: Making a medical appointment to sit in a small white room or watching a video of a person dancing and giving fun health tips? For many, it’s the latter.

Turning to influencers: Influencers who post about health and wellness are easy to access and convey a sense of intimacy and caring that can cause people to trust them. But wellness influencers aren’t always there to help people.
Trust in doctors: Research shows a decline in the public’s trust in scientists and health experts. It is also often challenging to access healthcare.
Making money: Many wellness influencers sell products like supplements — which aren’t FDA-approved — giving them a financial incentive to create engaging online content that connects with people’s uncertainty and needs. But some influencers share misinformation, something that can do real-life harm.

💬 Discuss:

Why might people trust wellness influencers over their doctors?
What are some possible consequences of widespread health misinformation?
What skills could help protect you and your loved ones from falling for health misinformation?

⭐ NLP Resources:

“Be Health Informed” (Checkology virtual classroom)
Infographic: “Levels of scientific evidence”
Sift quiz: “Wellness & science claims”

📝 Note: Check out NLP’s new “News Literacy for mental health and wellness” page for more resources, including lessons and activities for students.

🔗 Related:

“We analyzed 200 cancer and autism videos on TikTok and found the majority contain misinformation” (CBC)

These classroom-ready slide decks provide a comprehensive walk-through on how to debunk false rumors.

Yes, video showing large crowd at No Kings rally is real

A social media post reads, “BREAKING: Analysts are calling this the biggest FRAUD in American history. MSNBC falsely aired a Video from 2017 claiming it was LIVE footage from yesterday’s ‘No Kings’ rally in Boston” and includes an MSNBC video showing a large crowd and a screenshot of a comment from the AI chatbot Grok that reads, “This video is from a 2017 Boston protest, not today’s No Kings rally, which was indeed a large event with tens of thousands attending per reports.” The News Literacy Project has added a label that says “FALSE” over the statements claiming that the video is from 2017, and a label that says “GENUINE 2025 VIDEO” over a screenshot of the video.

✅ YES: This is an authentic video of a large crowd attending a No Kings protest in Boston on Oct. 18.

❌ NO: This footage is not from 2017.

✅ YES: The AI chatbot Grok incorrectly answered people’s queries about this video by falsely stating the footage was old.

⭐ NewsLit takeaway:

Online misinformation often pushes false claims about crowd sizes. While most of these false claims use out-of-context images to increase the amount of apparent support — such as these falsehoods about political rallies and COVID-19 vaccine protests — others attempt to downplay crowd size by casting doubt on genuine photographs and videos. View these Google Slides for tips on spotting these viral distortions.

Taylor Swift pregnancy announcement image is AI

A post reads, “BREAKING: BABY NO.1 ON THE WAY!” Taylor Swift & Travis Kelce Announce Expecting Their First Child – Fans and Celebrities React with Joy!!!” and includes an image that appears to show Swift and Kelce holding ultrasound images. The News Literacy Project has added a label that says “AI IMAGE.”

❌ NO: Musician Taylor Swift and her fiancé, Travis Kelce, did not announce in an October social media post that she is pregnant.

✅ YES: The image of the couple holding ultrasound photos is AI-generated.

✅ YES: False claims about celebrities, including retirements, pregnancies and engagements, regularly resurface on social media.

⭐ NewsLit takeaway:

Engagement-bait accounts like the one spreading this rumor attempt to generate traffic by posting fabricated images and fictional news headlines, such as a major announcement from a high-profile celebrity. Learn how to think critically about these kinds of false, clickbait claims with these Google Slides.

➕ Six seveeeeeen! Perhaps you’ve heard students shouting this phrase at school? It’s a joke with no punchline, and it all started with an internet meme.

➕ Imagine watching an hourlong news special called “Will AI Take My Job?” by a broadcast journalist who, at the end, is revealed to be AI-generated. Britain’s Channel 4 recently did just that.

➕ OpenAI has a new AI-powered web browser called ChatGPT Atlas, which has a split-screen function that displays chatbot responses alongside internet searches. Many experts believe it’s the future of web browsing, while others are skeptical.

➕ Many people get news on TikTok, where major news outlets have a presence. Now The New York Times is taking the TikTok format to a new “Watch” tab in its app.

➕ The Washington Post published a detailed analysis of how an Israeli airstrike that hit a Gaza hospital in August unfolded — and killed five journalists.

➕ A new “pink slime” outlet in San Diego has no news reporters and relies on AI automation to scrape public data and generate local news “stories” — just one of hundreds such bogus outlets aimed at communities throughout the U.S.

➕ What’s your “AI-dentity”? Take this Bloomberg quiz to learn whether you’re an AI doomer, a pragmatist or something else.