Why Is Google Discover Promoting Fake News?

Discover — a Google app feature that delivers customized content based on user behavior like search history, web activity, and location data — has come under fire for turning once-trusted feeds into a minefield of clickbait, fraudulent claims, and misleading AI-generated content. Where is this spam coming from, and how is Google responding? Let’s explore.

How fake content took over Google Discover

Rolled out in 2018, Google Discover promised users a carefully curated content delivery service — and advertisers a “high-intent,” “mobile-first” platform perfect for targeted brand-building, according to Brandika.

But in October, Press Gazette reported, “Fake news stories have been viewed tens of millions of times this week on Google’s Discover news aggregation platform,” and, even more egregiously, “Google promoted the fake stories despite the fact they came from publishers who had emerged from nowhere overnight.”

With attention-grabbing headlines designed to provoke outrage — like “Driving Licence Update: New Rules for Over-62s Starting 22 September 2025,” a misleading title that resulted in over 40 million views on Google Discover U.K. — indiscernible fake news content isn’t just causing confusion and upset among users, it’s also impacting businesses.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) shares the story of an article that falsely asserted that Promod, a French clothing brand, was closing. “The story appeared in Google Discover…and rapidly spread online, prompting the company to publicly deny the report. The article was later taken down.” Analysis of the website that published the fake article revealed “844 of its articles had already been featured by the [Google Discover] algorithm,” and that the “staggering” rate of publication led RSF analysts to conclude, “only generative AI could produce content at this volume — unless the site employed dozens of seasoned journalists. Yet the articles are all attributed to La Rédaction, or ‘the editorial staff.’”

Some of the fraudulent articles promoted by Google Discover are taken down after successful petitioning, but most fake, AI-generated content remains in the mix, often topping rankings thanks to manipulative headlines.

The profitability of fake news

The reason Google is willing to sacrifice Discover’s reputation at the altar of clickbait is, of course, revenue. According to Press Gazette, “every sixth article on the Discover feed is a sponsored post with all revenue going to Google,” and the fake news articles “will have made tens of thousands in revenue for the creators of the fraudulent websites promoted by Google, which are packed with advertising.”

Jean-Marc Manach, a French data journalist, revealed how this process works to Press Gazette . First, the bad actors, “‘buy expired domain names’” and “‘install a WordPress Lite theme optimised to Google’s specifications in order to speed their appearance on mobile phones.’” The scammers then “‘analyse what’s trending on social networks, generate several articles about those trends, illustrated by large (1,200 pixels) images with clickbait titles, and hope that one (or several) of them will ‘pop’ on Discover.’”

Will Google put a stop to the spam?

“They [Google] talk a lot about quality, expertise, authority, trust – they need to live up to those standards,” Malcolm Coles, an audience growth consultant for publishers, told Press Gazette .

With industry insiders raising the increasingly vocal alarm about the proliferation of spam on Google Discover, Google reluctantly entered the conversation in November.

‘“We keep the vast majority of spam out of Discover through robust spam-fighting systems and clear policies against new and emerging forms of low quality, manipulative content,’” a Google spokesperson told Press Gazette. “‘We’re actively working on a fix that will better address the specific type of spam that’s being referenced here, maintaining our high bar for quality in Discover.’”

In a recent blog post, Google also revealed that the Discover algorithm will be refined to include more content from “creators across the web, such as posts from X and Instagram and YouTube Shorts.” This may simply be Google’s attempt to diversify Discover’s content offerings, but it may also signal a subtle shift away from articles, which have proven so susceptible to spam.

Only time will tell whether Google is serious about mitigating its fake news problem, but while we wait and see, Google users would be wise to approach content featured on Discover with guarded skepticism. And publishers should continue pushing for the stronger enforcement of regulatory standards that prioritize truth over revenue.