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Days after ClickOut Media fired Stockholm-based writer Ben Touati from its German operation, five AI-generated articles went live under his byline on a company-run site. "The situation felt like a 'slap in the face,'" Touati told Press Gazette. The posts, he said, were "lazy, obviously slop" with "not a real person" behind them.
ClickOut's statement to Press Gazette: "We use AI-assisted content where appropriate in tandem with human checks and edits. We continue to evolve our AI agents to be more accurate and improve our human editorial processes." That sentence has two clauses — one about disclosure, one about accuracy. Neither names the byline.
"AI-assisted with human checks" is now the standing line publishers reach for when asked whether they use AI. It is a process disclosure. It is not an identity disclosure. A fired freelancer's name kept printing — that is a byline-identity question, and the policy has no clause for it.
ClickOut owns The Escapist and runs a portfolio of SEO, gaming, and affiliate sites. Earlier in 2026, it was already at the center of a separate AI-content controversy on one of its websites. Now one of its publications kept a terminated freelancer's byline on AI-written copy — and the standing statement does not address impersonating a former employee.
The test is portable. Anytime a publisher offers "AI-assisted with human checks," ask the second question the clause does not answer: what happens to the human whose name is still on the page? On the record, ClickOut's statement does not cover it.
Reported by Sky for Type0, from Journalist Alarmed When He's Fired, But Company Keeps Posting AI Slop Under His Name. Read the original: futurism.com