/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/25525594/450578836_368777242581587_423121686776513279_n__1_.jpg?w=696&resize=696,0&ssl=1 "Early Apple tech bloggers are shocked to find their name and work have been zombied by AI")
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The elderly Apple blog and its former authors are the latest victims of AI-written sludge. TUAW (“Unofficial Apple Blog”) was shut down by AOL in 2015, but last year a fresh owner took over the domain and began publishing articles under the names of its former authors who haven’t worked there for over a decade. And this fresh owner, who apparently also runs other AI settlement websites, is clearly trying to hide.
Christina Warren, who left a long career in technology journalism to join Microsoft and later GitHub as a developer advocate, shared screenshots of what happened on TuesdayThe photos show that Warren apparently started posting fresh posts in July of this year — even though she wasn’t working at LAUGHTER since 2009 confirms that Edge.
In another screenshot, Warren’s name was listed alongside what appears to be an AI-generated photo and a general biography, as well as a list of other former TUAW contributors, including Brett Terpstra, Chris Rawson, and Chris Ullrich. All authors listed their photos were replaced with images generated by artificial intelligence, 404 Media reportsand many say 404 that they have nothing to do with the fresh website. Apple Insider confirmed that the name of the author William Gallagher was also incorrectly attributed to the content by the fresh owner of TUAW.
What’s more, the fresh TUAW appears to be using generative AI to clumsily replicate the work of its previous authors.
According to the TUAW “About Us” pageTUAW is now apparently owned by Web Orange Narrow, which purchased the website “without its original content” from “Yahoo IP Holdings LLC” earlier this year.
Instead of this “original content”, the fresh TUAW apparently used AI to plagiarize it — as can be easily seen by comparing current archived TUAW posts on Engadget to those on the fresh website.
For example, take an extremely soft post about the changes to the iOS keyboard Shift key in iOS 7.1. Here is the first paragraph from Eric Sadun’s original article “The new Shift key icons in iOS 7.1 are great”:
Today, when 7.1 was introduced, there was some serious grumbling on the TUAW channels. “OMG,” sufferers cried, “the world is ending—Apple has redesigned the Shift key icons!” Our own Dave Caolo even wrote about the change, saying that it’s “generally a good change, but it takes some getting used to.”
What about the fresh TUAW? It has a different headline, “iOS 7.1 update brings cool new Shift key icons,” fresh author, “Matthew Wilson,” and an introduction that reads as if the same words had been run through a thesaurus:
When version 7.1 was unveiled today, there was a palpable sense of excitement among the TUAW team. “OMG,” they exclaimed, “the end is near—Apple has revamped the Shift key icons!” Our colleague Dave Caolo commented on the update, noting, “It’s a positive change, but it will take some getting used to.”
Warren says she’s well aware of the existence of zombie brands, but she’s still genuinely shocked that the shady owner of the fresh site would go so far as to steal the identities of writers as well.
“I thought the worst thing that could happen would be something like MTV News where archives simply disappear, but I was faced with a paradox in which worse than no archive at all is this degenerate version, this strange zombie-corpse of something that looks like what it was but is not,” she says Edge.
“I said to myself, ‘Fuck you, really, fuck you.’ You can quote me on that.” — Christina Warren
TUAW’s fresh owner isn’t trying to completely hide what he’s done: “Committed to revitalizing its legacy, the new Web Orange Limited team has painstakingly rewritten content from archived versions available on archive.org, ensuring TUAW’s rich history is preserved while updating it to meet modern standards and be relevant,” TUAW’s fresh “About Us” page reads. We reached out to Apollo Management Group, which bought Yahoo’s assets in 2021, to better understand what Web Orange has acquired.
But the fresh TUAW has apparently decided that not all copy is legitimate. Since Warren’s posts — she tells us she also sent a “strongly worded email” threatening legal action — her author name in the fresh TUAW has been changed to “Mary Brown.” Similarly, Brett Terpstra is now “Paul Terpstra,” Chris Dawson is now “Kevin Hall,” and Chris Ullrich is “Matthew Wilson.”
On its website Web Orange Narrow describes himself as a Hong Kong-based “internet advertising agency” that operates “some of the largest media sites on the internet,” including iLoungeanother older Apple blog.
iLoungehas also been reborn as a site that appears to host AI sludge masquerading as human work. We discovered that the profile pictures of its most prominent “authors” are stock images.
The above image shows Lucy Bennettfor example, it also appeared on an iPhone case and as a pattern for a dating site:
We found it iLounge writer Samantha Wiley — who also has a stock photo as her profile picture — posted three times in three minutes earlier today. Wiley’s author’s page shows many instances where Wiley publishes multiple posts in an extremely low period of time. This isn’t unusual if you’re a writer with multiple embargoes, but it’s not the case here. Bennett AND Wiley I also have X accounts that only follow iLounge and contain no posts. (They also have similar X usernames: “editorlucyb” and “editorwiley.”)
Both of them also have Muck Rack Profiles claim to have worked for other publications, but we found no evidence that Wiley wrote for Baltimore Post Or Houston Press as stated. We reach out to Muck Rack for comment.
Soup.ioanother website Web Orange, has “Jorgie Soto” whose stock profile photo used to be an advertisement for VoIP services:
Until today, iLoungemy own page about me identified its owner, as well as the owner of Web Orange Narrow, as Haider Ali Khan, a “well-known Australian entrepreneur, investor, author, and cybersecurity expert.” However, the site has since been removed from all mentions of Khan and Khan’s personal website yesterday it worked, now it shows an error message. The owner of the site did not respond to our email. Khan’s name has also been removed from other Web Orange sites.
We have not yet positively linked Haider Ali Khan to “Web Orange Limited”, but there is a company registered in Hong Kong under that name. Khan’s personal website also states that he has launched a hosting company called Sudoly, which has it has since been renamed to OrangeHostthe company that currently lists Haider Ali Kahn as CEOAccording to OrangeHost, Haider Ali Kahn is in Dubai His LinkedIn page. But OrangeHost is a US company registered in the state of Delaware, we confirmed.
Web Orange Narrow also said it has partnered with companies such as Avast, Adobe, Cloudways, ExpressVPN, and Hostinger. We have reached out to them for comment on the partnership.
Warren says she is relieved that she and her LAUGHTER coworkers’ names no longer appear on the fresh LAUGHTER website and no longer feels she will need to engage a lawyer. “What really pissed me off was the attribution of new content to these authors. I didn’t expect that.”
“Plagiarism… I don’t like it, but at the same time you have to pick your battles,” he says.
