Newspaper giant Gannett is shutting down its product review site Reviewed on Nov. 1, according to a source familiar with the decision. The site publishes recommendations for a wide range of products from shoes to electronics and employs journalists to test and review them, but questions have been raised about whether the articles are actually written by humans.
“After careful consideration and evaluation of the Reviewed business, we have decided to close the business. We sincerely thank our employees for providing consumers with trusted product reviews,” Reviewed spokesperson Lark Marie Anton told The Verge in an email.
But the site has come under scrutiny recently, sometimes from unionized employees. Last October, Reviewed staff publicly accused Gannett of publishing AI-generated product reviews on the site. The articles in question had a strange, stilted writing style, and staff noticed that the people listed as the articles' authors had no presence on platforms like LinkedIn. Some questioned whether the articles were genuine. In response to questions, Gannett said the articles were created by a third-party marketing company called Advon Commerce, and that the original reviews did not include proper disclosures. Gannett, however, denied any AI involvement.
As The Verge reported last fall, the marketing company behind the reviewed content is the same one that caused a similar ruckus at Sports Illustrated, where strikingly similar product reviews were published and attributed to freelancers. But in Sports Illustrated's case, the evidence that AI was involved was obvious: photos of the authors' faces were being sold on an AI image website. Sports Illustrated claimed that Adbon had assured the company that the content was written by real humans, although the authors' names were indeed not real.
But The Verge's investigation into AdVon found that the company was churning out marketing content across the web, some of which was indeed generated by AI, according to former employees. AdVon CEO and co-founder Ben Fau has long used his media connections to secure news deals, often in elaborate marketing schemes to enrich himself. AdVon's marketing content appeared everywhere from small blogs to outlets like Us Weekly and the Los Angeles Times. In response to The Verge's report, Fau said in an email that the company “generates affiliate revenue that publishers use to run their newsrooms and payroll.” He also said that AdVon offers “human-only, AI-augmented and hybrid solutions” to clients who hire the company.
Anton did not give a reason for shutting down Reviewed. Product reviews are often seen as a lucrative business for publishers because they draw readers looking for buying advice on search engines and can generate revenue when readers buy products from articles. Other news organizations, including the Associated Press, have announced similar ventures in recent months. But even the content that has historically brought profits to news organizations is vulnerable to changes in Google search, where most of their traffic comes from. Some independent sites have said they've seen a steady decline in search traffic, and Google's shift to AI search tools threatens to further eat into their revenue.
Reviewed's union members have engaged in multiple mini-strikes after reaching an impasse with Gannett management, most recently in July when employees held a temporary walkout after they said they were being asked to take on additional work that would come with a pay adjustment. Gannett would not comment on whether Reviewed's employees would be offered new roles within the company or whether they would be laid off.
