TLDR:
a German court has ruled that Google is liable for false statements in AI Overviews.
I'm getting pretty sick of these bots posting links to news articles without anything other than a clickbait title.
this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2026
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Ugh, yeah, that's all the place has become; communities full of unsubstantial news articles for what is only substantial news a small amount of the time.
Lemmy is like 80% really shitty newspaper, 18% hollow rooms, and 2% community.
2% community lfg 💪
All I can muster right now: 🚩
B> ut the court found that, unlike traditional search engines that merely present lists of links to third-party statements, Google’s tool made “independent, new, and substantive statements” based on its own misinterpretation of links on the Internet.
That’s a problem, the court said, because while publishers may have been able to sue to stop third parties from publishing defamatory statements appearing in Google search results, only Google can correct the underlying algorithm and outputs displayed in AI Overviews. And because, at least initially, the company did not, it therefore “must be held accountable,” the court ruled. Beyond that, Google’s argument was deemed particularly weak, since the AI overview in this case “contains statements that do not appear in the search results at all.”
That's pretty cut and dry, especially for the parties that wew being incorrectly presented in the overview despite letters to Google for cease-and-desist.
The ruling isn't final.