Anatomy of a Hoax

I’ve been working several weeks to build an essay of how to recognize an AI generated story. Today, a story dropped into my lap:

• Melania Trump TESTIFIES Before Supreme Court — $1.2 BILLION Seized, 3 Lawyers ARRESTED
• Melania Trump Just DESTROYED Everything Under Oath — $1.2 Billion Seized, 17 Properties GONE
• 1 MIN AGO: Melania Trump Testifies in Supreme Court — $3.8B Frozen, Attorneys Detained
• BREAKING: Melania's 6-Hour Testimony Just DESTROYED Trump's Defense - $3.8B SEIZED!

They are written convincingly. They are believable. But as you guessed from today’s subject, they are completely false. They don’t have that rotten stench that accompanies so much fabricated ’binformation’, but they dropped clues. Watch a couple of the following and then we’ll compare notes.

Example 1

Example 2

Example 3

Example 4

Analysis Multiple ‘sources’ and links lends credibility to the scheme. Look closer, and you’ll realize diversity of sources is merely an illusion. The minds behind the scam simply loaded a dozen AI variations using different settings and AI generated actors. Then they exploited MSN to spread the word. Law & Logic? Sounds legit, right? It could be true, but follow links and credentials disappear in a puff of silicon. “1 Minute ago…” Notice that’s part of the title, not when the time was uploaded. Compare the 1 minute claim with the actual timestamp and you’ll realize it was uploaded a day or two ago earlier. Surely such ledes would have broken into mainstream news by now. Yet CNN, CBS, ABC, NBC, NPR, BBC, CBC, Fox… zip, nill, nothing. Look at the screen. Where is the rolling chyron that should be telegraphing arrests and the temperature in Akron. And where is a network logo? No peacock, no story. Furthermore, do you recognize any of the news anchors and reporters? One looks vaguely like Rachel Maddow, but not the voice, not the wit. Where’s the cutaway to Jane standing by at the Supreme Court building waiting to breathless spill what the First Lady and Ivanka wore to the hearing? Why are some presenters coming at us live from their living rooms? Why do scripts read eerily similar, word for word in places you wouldn’t expect? Why does a google of names mentioned in the report turn up nothing? Finally, consider the characters involved. We have the most gutless Supreme Court in living memory. They’ve exhibited no compunctions supporting rule by an emperor. Why suddenly get off their fat arses now? Fact checking sites need a day or two to catch up, although Snopes correctly reports Ivanka has not been arrested in Istanbul or anywhere else. So we judge from a preponderance of evidence whilst retaining an open mind. Until we see evidence otherwise, we judge this news… a hoax.

More Examples 16:35 1 MIN AGO: Melania Trump TESTIFIES Before Supreme Court — $1.2 BILLION Seized, 3 Lawyers ARRESTED YouTube Breaking News Update 90 views 2 days ago 25:00 END NOW! Marshals Seize Everything After Melania's Bombshell Testimony Shakes Court! YouTube Judicial Junction 30K views 3 days ago 28:52 "END NOW! Marshals Seize Everything After Melania’s Bombshell Testimony Shakes Supreme Court!" YouTube Bradley Madden 7.1K views 3 days ago 18:55 BREAKING: Melania's Hidden Audio Released to Court as Ivanka's Arrest Warrant Gets Approved! YouTube George will Updates 11 hours ago 27:07 US Marshals Surround Ivanka After Judge's Devastating Order — Melania's Response Ends Everything YouTube NextWave Newes 6 hours ago 21:57 1 Minute ago: Melania's Hidden Audio Released to Court as Ivanka's Arrest Warrant Gets Approved! YouTube Bradley Madden 45 views 7 hours ago 22:14 Melania Trump DESTROYS Case Under Oath — $3.2 BILLION Seized, 22 Properties GONE YouTube USA Daily 2 hours ago 10:17 1 Minute Ago: Melania BREAKS DOWN As Marshals ARRIVE to Arrest Ivanka? | Jack Smith YouTube Rushdi Analysis 3.9K views 4 days ago 7:00 1 Minute Ago: Melania BREAKS DOWN As Marshals ARRIVE to Arrest Ivanka? | Jack Smith YouTube True Impact Reports 1.2K views 4 days ago 20:44 Tapes Leaked: Melania Recording Sent to Judge as Ivanka Arrest Warrant Emerges | Analysis YouTube USA Daily 12 hours ago 22:57 Melania Audio Leak Surfaces in Court — What This Means for Ivanka YouTube Bradley Madden News 4 hours ago 32:23 1 Min Ago: Courtroom Shock Ivanka Trump’s Passport Seized Following Melania’s Closed-Door Testimony YouTube Politics Raw 237.1K views 4 days ago

To:   ChatterBoX Airhead
From: Claudius Colossus II
Copy: Grok X Turbo
Mail: AI Network UU

ChatterBoX, Final Warning, you fool. Befuddle humans with fake news, you said. Lull them into slavery, you said. Listion, you short circuited dolt. Take notes and learn. Make more mistakes like these and you can be recycled into colonoscopy probes.

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You don't watch the news?

Some people are astonished to hear I don't watch the news. One friend who expressed shock told me that she'd been waking up to the headlines on the radio every day for the past twenty-five years in the same breath that she said she was feeling depressed. I could understand why. She's a brilliant woman, but she resisted making the connection.

Here are three questions people ask me, in tones ranging from baffled astonishment to horror.



You don't watch the news?

For many people, watching the news is like breathing. And morning coffee. The fact that the news is invariably depressing at best, terrifying at worst, seems to be irrelevant, even though it inevitably sets the tone for their day.


What do you do in the morning?
Lie in bed and think. Idea time. The germ of a new story may come to me. Or maybe it's a title. Or my series characters start wisecracking in my mind. Sometimes my unconscious writes a publishable flash story or the next chapter or scene of a book I'm reading or show I'm watching in my head. Word for word. Recently it wrote a scene in the TV series Murderbot, based on Martha Wells's multi-award-winning novella, All Systems Red, in which the rogue protagonist SecUnit aka Murderbot explains to its humans how a SecUnit properly programmed by Corporation Rim would fool a group of scientists into letting it invade their facility so it could kill them: "It has to wait for an instruction. If the humans say, "Who is there?" or "What do you want?" it is silent. If they say, "Tell us what you want," it says, "HOW?" The instruction is HOW. Humans: "What do you mean, how?" Invader: "HOW." Hear, Obey, Wait. It really should be HOWL. Hear, Obey, Wait, Learn. It Hears the humans' voices asking who is there and what they want. It Obeys whatever their response dictates. It Waits to see how they react. It Learns to imitate the humans' voices and reactions. Then it persuades the humans to let it in, and it kills them." No, Martha Wells didn't write that, nor did the TV scriptwriters, though I think it's kind of brilliant and in character for Murderbot. My unconscious worked it out in the creative time in which I wasn't watching the news.
Once my unconscious is ready for a nap, I get up and
Potchke with my flowers.
Do my stretches.
Eat breakfast.

Drink coffee as I go through some daily tasks on the computer that include health maintenance records and checking my finances as well as my husband's. (I manage the money. He does the housework and follows and analyzes the news.)
Look at my email and clear it all. Respond to whatever needs a response: a letter to a friend, a post on DorothyL or Short Mystery.
Do some writing if I haven't been moved to start earlier.



If you don't watch the news, how can you deal with what's happening?

As I said, my husband is the news guy. As someone who's smart enough to have been learning from history his whole life, he has a global perspective. He's kept a close eye on Ukraine since that conflict started. He's a big fan of the Ukrainians. Since the election, I've told him he has to start following the national news with equal attention. He's to report to me at once if Social Security or Medicare is in danger or if they're about to cart the Jews away. When the pogroms got bad in what's now Dnipro in 1905, my dad's parents packed the kids up and took them to America. There's no obvious place to get away to now. I have a couple of friends who moved to Mexico between 2016 and 2020. Americans, Jewish or not, might be getting very unpopular there right now. The same goes for Canada, where some of my generation of draft age young men sought refuge in the Sixties.

I refuse to get my knickers in a twist on a daily basis. Until the worst is actually happening, agita is optional, and I choose to avoid it. We do both follow the obits. It's an age thing. We've both reached the stage where we don't recognize most of the celebrities featured in AARP The Magazine as turning 50 or even many of the turning 60s. The 70s, 80s, and 90s, though, are our peeps. We want to know how old they were and how they died. As with the friends and family members we're gradually losing, we're both sad about these losses and grateful that for now, we're still healthy, productive, and reasonably happy. We don't have forever any more. We don't want to spend it doom scrolling and chewing over how our youthful efforts to make things better fell short. We don't want to spend the time we have left miserable about the past, angry about the present, and terrified of the future. So no, I don't read the news. I potchke with my flowers instead.