Bonum Certa Men Certa

Slopwatch: Google News Has Lost the Plot

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Jul 31, 2025

The frequency or the prominence of LLM slop seems to have grown in Google News. The slop is drowning out the signal. It's really bad. We'll come to that in a moment.

So Google News links to Linux Journal, which based on the structure alone gives away its misuse of bots:

Veil of Vigilance: Tails 6.0’s New Frontiers in Surveillance Resistance

Pure nonsense. Same as LinuxSecurity with LLM slop, i.e. the usual:

Hardening Open-Source Web Applications: Best Practices for Security Professionals

Bland headline and pointless text. The wrong output of a lazy "prompt engineer"?

Then there's this relatively new slopfarm in Google News:

Linux Kernel 6.16 Released. New Features and Improvements Without Much Woww Effect

It's slop, as usual:

Last weekend the final version of the Linux kernel 6.16 was released

Google News is also promoting FUD.

Consider this latest misdirection. Now a pair of slopfarms run by the same people and containing only slop images are propped up by Google News:

Gunra Ransomware’s New Linux Variant Uses 100 Encryption Threads and Partial Encryption Feature

Gunra Ransomware New Linux Variant Runs Up To 100 Encryption Threads With New Partial Encryption Feature

Fake articles about what's really (originally) a Windows issue.

Also boosted by Google News today... at least 4 fake articles about "Linux". This is all from a slopfarm containing slop images and fake author names:

 Linux Kernel 6.17 Drops Uniprocessor Builds for SMP Optimization

 Lyon Switches to Linux, Open-Source from Microsoft by 2026

 Sparky Linux 7.8 ‘Orion Belt’: Lightweight Windows 11 Alternative

AMD Ryzen Threadripper 9970X

So basically it has been a bad day in Google News. Almost the majority of articles returned for "Linux" are fakes.

Other Recent Techrights' Posts

What LibreOffice and TDF Get Right About Document Formats (and What They Get Wrong)
OOXML is a phantom - it is something nobody implements, not even Microsoft!
Cannot Speak About IBM Wrongdoing or Jobs Being Sent Overseas (Lower Salaries)
IBM has long attacked the media, the whistleblowers, and even online forums
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The CIA-Funded Centre-Left in Portugal
In the political turmoil which followed the fall of the old regime, the communists seemed to be acquiring a dominant position and there was a very real risk that Portugal could end up aligned with the Eastern Bloc if they were not stopped
Yesterday Afternoon The Register MS Published a Fake Article That Says "AI" 31 Times Because It Got Paid to Do This
What will happen when all those loans for slop (Ponzi scheme) stop and companies' marketing budgets - which include media bribes for hype campaigns - are no more?
Extraordinary General Meeting of Staff Union of the European Patent Office Ahead of Intensifying Strikes
We will, in the meantime, run a series about EPO corruption, which is now connected to corruption in Portugal and to corruption inside the EU
 
Communities and "Prosumers."
today's meetup will be about community
Gemini and Gopher Links 10/06/2026: Roasting, Changes, and Harms of Slop
Links for the day
IBM Genies in the Bottle
for ordinary people working who at at IBM, it's not hard to see that IBM is floundering
Microsoft Azure Shrinking With More Mass Layoffs
"Reports suggest the layoffs will impact close to 200 out of 400 workers, who are set to cease employment at Azure on July 6"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, June 09, 2026
IRC logs for Tuesday, June 09, 2026
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The Centre-Right "Social Democratic Party" in Portugal
Quite an achievement for a former Maoist radical and aspiring champion of the Portuguese proletariat to be invited to join Goldman Sachs
SLAPP Censorship - Part 102 Out of 200: Maybe One Day Whistleblowers From Brett Wilson LLP Will Tell Us What Really Happened
Maybe one day some former staff of Brett Wilson LLP will also approach us to blow the whistle
Gemini Links 09/06/2026: "The Mist of the Lands Between", Board Game Concept
Links for the day
2026: The Year Slop Companies "Made an Exit" (Threw in the Towel Over to Wall Street)
Remember 2026 as the year two major slop companies (which we won't name) sought an IPO
Links 09/06/2026: NSO Group still cracking, "FOI tribunal throws out £14k costs claim against journalist Barnie Choudhury"
Links for the day
Links 09/06/2026: "Smartphones Broke Dating" and "EU Open Source Strategy"
Links for the day
This Coming Friday
Richard Stallman (RMS)
Several Slopfarms That Target "Linux" Seem to Have Died
Or perished severely
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Monday, June 08, 2026
IRC logs for Monday, June 08, 2026
Gemini Links 09/06/2026: Tanana River, Cassette Beasts, and Emacs
Links for the day
IBM's Quantum Bubble Already Deflating
Shares down over $55 in a few days
European Patent Office (EPO) Series: The Brotherhood of São Bento
The Palácio São Bento – or São Bento Palace – is the seat of the Portuguese National Assembly in Lisbon
SLAPP Censorship - Part 101 Out of 200: Women Come to Realise They Don't Wish to Participate in Attacking Vulnerable Women
It relates to another topic that we shall be covering in the coming weeks
Links 08/06/2026: Proprietary Loaded With Security Holes, Armenia Defies Russia
Links for the day
Gemini Links 08/06/2026: NetHack 5.0.0 and Slop as Cannibalism
Links for the day
Links 08/06/2026: "Rising Emissions, Depleting Water" Due to the Pyramid Scheme of Slop; "Canada Needs to Rebuild Public Telecoms"
Links for the day
Brett Wilson LLP Reported to Police for Trying to Throw Large Parcel Into Our Home
This morning the campaign of intimidation...
GAFAM Bots Are Not "Good Bots"
There's nothing "Good" about Google
Links 08/06/2026: Criticism of Microsoft Trying to Criminalise Pointing Out Bug Doors, TikTok Now "Climate-Denying Social Media App"
Links for the day
Slop Has no ROI, an Economy Built on False Assumptions of Slop is Doomed
we're all going to suffer from this Ponzi scheme
The Cyber Show Has "Exciting Guests Coming" and a Gemini Capsule
"Site development is ongoing but now settling into a more stable form"
GNU/Linux Measured at 10% in Liechtenstein This Month
it seems like statCounter wrongly classified some GNU/Linux clients as Mac clients and is now issuing a correction
Communicating With Freedom - Part III - Quibble Envisioned as a New and Easily Accessible Communications Platform Based on LibreJS
the FSF really needs to become more active if not proactive in promoting those sorts of things
Clownflare Says Majority of Web Traffic is Now Bots, But the Net is Another Story
Bots are to Clownflare what lawsuits are to lawyers
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, June 07, 2026
IRC logs for Sunday, June 07, 2026
The Strikes at the European Patent Office Planned to Carry on for the Entire Year, Maybe Future Years as Well
There's a cautionary tale somewhere
Number of Patent Grants Has Plunged 23% Amid Strikes at the European Patent Office, Today There Are More Strikes (Strike Participation at Over 3,000, More Than Doubled Since Winter)
There is a growing crisis at the European Patent Office
E.E.E. Still Ongoing, the War on Copyleft/GPL Enables That
It also imperils security.