Scammers Stole the Website for Emerson College's Student Radio Station and Started Running It as a Zombie AI Site

Earlier this month, student leaders at Emerson College's student radio station, WECB, received an urgent email. "Yo!!!" read the subject line. "There's an AI website using your identity!" The email was from a student at the University of Oregon, who went on to explain that her professor had, in class, pulled up what they believed to be an article published by WECB. According to the emailer, the professor had cited the story as an example of "student-written solutions journalism." But the article, which was published in March and covered Iceland's experiment with four-day work weeks, immediately seemed fishy. As the Oregon student noted, its featured image looked like it was AI-generated. So did its text, which was stilted and strange, and overall just not very good. The article also wasn't even about music, the topic that WECB and its associated publication, Milk Crate, are dedicated to. When the Oregon student dug further, she saw that there were, in fact, two WECB websites — one ... Read full article.