'Typosquatting': How to spot fake news sites created by AI

Artificial intelligence is being used to create fake news websites that mimic legitimate French outlets through typosquatting—registering domains with names nearly identical to real publications like France 24, Sud Ouest Direct, and 20minutes.com. The fraudulent sites are designed to deceive readers into believing they're accessing credible journalism when they're actually encountering AI-generated misinformation. This tactic exploits the difficulty many people have in distinguishing authentic news sources from counterfeits, particularly when domain names are only slightly altered. The rise of these spoofed sites underscores a broader challenge: as AI tools become more sophisticated and accessible, bad actors can scale disinformation campaigns faster than fact-checkers can identify them. Readers can protect themselves by carefully checking URLs, verifying publication names character-by-character, and consulting official website lists before trusting news content.