This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: New research from Carnegie Mellon University's Kenneth C. Griffin School of Computer Science found that partisan media operations spent millions of dollars on social media ads ahead of key elections to promote pink slime websites masquerading as local news sources to sway voters with their content.
Named after the meat byproduct, pink slime journalism refers to news websites that publish digitally generated, low-quality content or partisan articles under the guise of being a local news source. As reliable local news sources have diminished, these pink slime sites have emerged to fill the gap. But unlike real local news sources, the public doesn't know who funds and influences these organizations.
Researchers in CMU's Software and Societal Systems Department (S3D) found that leading up to the 2020 and 2024 elections, Facebook ad spending for pink slime journalism sites spiked, going from hundreds of thousands to millions of dollars. The work is published in the journal Computational and Mathematical Organization Theory. While these pink slime sites typically have no real ties to the local community they claim to cover, they publish a mixture of digitally generated local and national news.
The harm, researchers say, rests in how these sites exploit people's trust in local news to impact their beliefs. Also, as AI-generated content improves, more articles on pink slime sites appear to be written by real people even though they were manufactured by AI. For their study, the researchers collected 14,581 advertisement posts shared from 310 Facebook pages, linking to 383 unique domains, the majority of which had pink slime origins.
Along with the spending trends, researchers also identified who was targeted and found that organizations tailored their campaigns along demographic and state lines. Researchers found these sites targeted more swing states and specific populations during crucial election years. The left-leaning sites targeted more women than men with more impressions from those under 55 years of age, and more right-leaning sites targeted more men and got more impressions from those older than 55.
Also, while the Facebook ads promoted pink slime sites, they also linked to other social media platforms, such as X and Reddit. These organizations also used local Facebook groups aimed at specific populations. Lynnette Ng, an S3D doctoral alumna who worked on this research, said by sharing these articles inside community Facebook groups, pink slime operations tap into existing social trust.
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