Google has a problem with plagiarized news content, but says it's up to publishers to deal with

Hey Google, why is my Discover feed filled with stolen articles?

Plagiarism is serious business, especially in journalism. But while individual writers stealing portions of work from other creators online is a problem, it has nothing on sites that wholesale rip off countless articles, repackaging them as their own in an attempt to steal eyes and ad sales without any actual labor. While it's hard to stop this process from happening, it's really only a problem if a major channel like, say, Google starts to surface these results instead of unique, original reporting. Unfortunately, that's exactly what's happening — and it doesn't seem like the company's doing much to stop it.

The folks at 9to5Google spotted stolen content from their site, our site, and CNBC within Google Discover, all through the Web Stories function introduced back in 2020. If you aren't familiar with Web Stories, it's probably because you've become adept at ignoring any attempt at Story-style features. This feature was Google's crack at mixing Snapchat and news into a single product, initially launched with some major publications like Vice and Input. However, easy integration with CMS software was the real draw for Web Stories, with WordPress among the partners.

That support brings us to where we are today. Rather than populating Web Stories with the same major media publications you're likely to find in Discover, Google seems to pull from anyone willing to use the plug-in — and increasingly, it's down to low-effort sites dedicated to stealing content, purely for the sake of getting it online. In fact, in many cases, these sites are custom-built to only support these Web Stories, cluttering your Discover feed and raking in ad dollars from anyone who unknowingly clicks on one.

2 Images

Stolen content from The Verge, with the original section highlighted on the right. The entire introduction has been wholesale lifted for this Web Stories entry.

Personally, it didn't take long for me to spot stolen content in Web Stories — in fact, the very first entry Google served me ripped off The Verge. That same "Insane" publication previously spotted by 9to5 has made its way to my feed, stealing portions of The Verge's coverage of YouTube TV's 5.1 surround sound update. In an attempt to save face, it left out specific words and phrases, creating a broken mess of slides that was tough to read. Sure enough, though, these sentences match up perfectly.

2 Images

Another example, this time from outside the world of tech. Rolling Stone's review of Barry, stolen for a slideshow.

Digging through the rest of the feed returned similar results. A review of Barry's season three finale by "Harvest House" was filled with blurbs stolen from Alan Sepinwall's review over at Rolling Stone, and yet, it had the gall to end with a "Brought to you by Harvest House" splash screen. A site called "Google's Guide" stole coverage on Meet and Duo's merger from TheTechXP, and although they share a WordPress theme, the two don't seem to be connected. SlashGear and XFire were the only two websites in my feed that didn't have identical articles appear on other sites; they were also the only sites to feature author bylines in their coverage.

You might think Google would care about getting this issue under control or, at the very least, saving face to look a little more innocent. While it's not necessarily the company's fault these stories are spamming its feed, it does build the tools that allow these low-effort publications to steal content from sources like this site. Instead, Google pushed its responsibility back to publishers like us, issuing the following statement to 9to5Google:

"Web Stories are meant to reflect original works, and we encourage rightsholders to report copyright infringement. If we are notified of content that infringes on someone else's copyright, we take appropriate action."

Put simply, the company believes it's on the rights holders to hunt down this content, report it to Google, and wait for it to be taken down.

Unfortunately, without some active effort from the search giant, this feels like to turn into, at best, a game of whack-a-mole. Spinning up a new plagiarism mill doesn't take long, and with Google's toolset, it's all too easy to start spamming Web Stories from a new site. As it stands, the company has left its Snapchat-for-news service to crumble under the weight of low-effort content and stolen materials. Ultimately, it's up to Google to handle this stuff, and without any action on its part, Discover's Stories clone seems like a good candidate for the Killed By Google graveyard. As it stands, not much would be lost anyway.