The distinction between fact and fiction often becomes blurred in the increasingly digital world. New Zealand has recently become a clear example of this issue. A series of fake news stories, carefully made and spread through the seemingly legitimate website morningside.nz/news, has revealed the troubling ways artificial intelligence (AI) can create misleading content for profit. Many of these stories focus on the Department of Conservation (DOC), crafting unbelievable narratives that, despite being implausible, have caused confusion and even deepened societal divisions.
The elaborate deception came to light when DOC employees found a story claiming that the Whakataki Valley, supposedly located east of Mount Aspiring National Park, had been closed for overnight stays. The article mentioned an unnamed DOC employee hinting at undisclosed reasons and stated, “there’s more going on than we can talk about right now.” The article also cited a former hut warden who only revealed his first name. DOC quickly debunked this dramatic narrative, which sounded like a plot from a horror movie. Contrary to the story’s suggestion, the Whakataki Valley is located on the North Island, not in Fiordland.
Another false tale claimed that steel bars had been placed across the entrance to “Echo Hole,” a fictional cave in the South Island backcountry. Andy Roberts, DOC’s manager of visitor safety and standards, pointed out the absurdity of this claim. He explained that while the Waitaki district has many caves, none are called Echo Holes. He also noted that the AI-generated image showing a rainforest around the cave was incorrect since the Waitaki region is dry.
These misleading narratives from morningside.nz follow a similar pattern. They often use real New Zealand place names but link them to wrong areas and create complex backstories. A common thread in these articles is the supposed discovery of taonga (treasured possessions or cultural artefacts) as a reason for closures, consistently portraying DOC as untrustworthy and secretive. DOC has firmly stated that all stories related to them are completely false.
Rod Ballenden, the operator of morningside.nz, described his website as “hacked.” He said that many of the articles, filled with digital ads, were being added to the news section, and efforts to remove them had been difficult. Cybersecurity expert Adam Boileau offered a possible explanation. He suggested that the site owner may have forgotten to renew the domain name. He explained that details about expired domain names are publicly available, allowing people to “snipe” them from their original owners. What made this case particularly strange, according to Boileau, was that the original website remained while only a fake news section was added. He speculated that the creators aimed to exploit the site’s existing reputation, hoping its established value would survive, and that keeping the original services might prevent the owner from noticing the breach. Boileau suggested the site owner could contest ownership with New Zealand’s domain name registry.
Dylan Reeve, a technology specialist and author of Fake Believe: Conspiracy Theories in Aotearoa, commented on how common these events are in today’s shady internet landscape. He expressed his belief that the culprits, whether based in New Zealand or elsewhere, may remain undiscovered. Reeve emphasized that the main issue here is revenue grabbing. He described the articles as “logical nonsense with headlines and a few vaguely credible paragraphs to attract attention,” adding that he would be surprised if they weren’t AI-generated. The automation, he speculated, could extend beyond content to image creation, possibly with a system in place that could produce many articles automatically. Besides the DOC-related falsehoods, the website also had AI-generated stories about groceries, real estate, and petrol, all designed to attract clicks and engage with current New Zealand interests.
Interestingly, many of the made-up stories touched on cultural issues, often mentioning iwi (tribes), taonga, human remains, and sometimes rāhui (a temporary restriction or ban). Reeve noted that divisive topics are often deliberately selected because they succeed in drawing attention. The comments sections under these fake stories raised additional concerns. Some comments expressed anger, asking why the public could not “take full advantage of our nation” and claiming that land ownership should not be based solely on Māori claims, referencing an unverified “another tribe of people” who supposedly existed before Māori. The repetition of identical or very similar comments across different articles, along with repeated phrases like “honestly” at the beginning of one comment and “exactly” at the start of a reply, suggested that some or all of these comments might also be fake.
Hemopereki Simon, a research fellow at the University of Waikato, confirmed that the idea of Māori not being the indigenous people of the nation is not new and has appeared in literature for a long time. However, he noted a recent rise in such beliefs, especially on social media. Simon, who recently studied racism within discussions about the Three Waters project on Twitter, highlighted the widespread nature of these views. He also pointed out a key detail in the fake news stories—no actual DOC staff were ever quoted. Roberts reiterated that all official DOC information, including closure notices, is always attributed to named individuals and is consistently posted on the official DOC website. He advised the public to rely only on these verified sources for correct information.
This unsettling episode serves as an important reminder of the complex nature of misinformation campaigns in the digital age and the need for media literacy and critical thinking when navigating online content.
