Google’s AI says Declan Rice donated £14m to house homeless families – but it’s not true

Anyone curious about England and Arsenal footballer Declan Rice’s charity work would likely turn to one place: Google. Here, they’d discover a heartwarming tale of the midfielder donating $14 million (£10.2m) in bonus and sponsorship earnings to fund a housing initiative called Home Again in London’s Tower Hamlets to provide housing for homeless families. In truth, they’d be learning very little about Declan Rice – and a lot about how false information spreads.

Big Issue has confirmed the story is not true with both Arsenal Football Club and Tower Hamlets Council, who told us no such project even exists. 

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The tale appears to have begun with a story on a dubious online news site, spread through viral social media posts, and then pushed to users through Google’s AI summary feature.

Experts contacted by Big Issue said the incident showed the dangers of AI summaries.

“The incident with Google propagating a false story about Declan Rice illustrates a deepening crisis in our online information ecosystem,” said Dr Karen Middleton, a senior lecturer in marketing at the University of Portsmouth who has given evidence to parliament on social media misinformation.

“When giants like Google present falsehoods as truth, the implications are serious: erosion of public trust, damage to reputation of those falsely accused, and a fertile environment for division and misinformation. It underlines why regulation, fact-checking standards and transparency must be strengthened – not weakened.”

A story about Rice’s supposed donation, published on 11 August on the “Top News” website, details how $14m of money from bonuses and sponsorships will go towards the “Home Again” initiative, funding 140 transitional housing units and 220 shelter beds. It even features a quote from Rice, saying the donation was inspired by his own upbringing: “No child should have to go to sleep without a roof over their head.”

The news story also contains a made-up tweet from Gary Lineker and a quote from a fictitious Tower Hamlets councillor named Amina Rahman. Other stories on the site include a false story about the death of a Manchester City player who is unnamed but pictured as Ruben Dias, and Prince William giving Kate Middleton a bouquet of 999 roses.

But the story spread beyond one news site. On Facebook, it was shared by an “Arsenal Supporters Club” page, where it gained 141,000 reactions and 4,400 shares. An Instagram video about the story gained 347,000 views. On Linkedin, one post about Rice’s fictitious donation described the act as “an incredible gesture and a reminder of the urgent need for more safe, secure housing across the UK”, gaining 3,800 reactions. On Reddit, one enterprising Leeds fan journeyed to the Arsenal forum to post the story in praise of Rice.

Had you seen these posts and tried to look into the story on Google, you would have been met with the AI overview. Launched last year, the feature presents AI-generated summaries at the top of search results to give users quick answers to complex questions, according to a summary generated by Google’s own AI summary.

The service features a disclaimer that it might contain mistakes, and tells users to double-check important information.

“AI-generated summaries risk serious harm to public trust and confidence in journalism. With misinformation and disinformation rife online, tech giants have a crucial role to play in ensuring they do not amplify false news stories that mislead the public,” Laura Davison, general secretary of the National Union of Journalists, told Big Issue.

“We once again urge Google and other technology companies to recognise the scale of their responsibilities and the need for thorough processes to avoid false summarisations that undermine journalists and journalism.”

In some cases, Google’s summary changed the original $14m amount to pounds – had the story been true, this would have inflated the donation, with £14m equivalent to $19m at current exchange rates.

The false story also appears before details of Declan Rice’s very real charity work. The 26-year-old is an ambassador for mental health charity CALM and last year donated £5,000 to a West Ham youth player fighting brain cancer. This month, he has appeared in videos for the Premier League’s #TogetherAgainstSuicide initiative.

“This case shows the importance of paying trained journalists to gather news and check facts, people who can identify obvious nonsense. AI summaries are only as good as the data they’re trained on. Rubbish in means rubbish out,” Matt Walsh, head of Cardiff University’s school of journalism, told Big Issue.

“If Google can’t get this right, they should think again about the value of presenting AI summaries to their users.” 

It’s not the first time Google’s AI summary has been wrong-footed. In April, Cwmbran journalist Ben Black discovered the tool had presented an old April Fools’ story – that the town had won a Guinness World Record for the most roundabouts per square kilometre – as fact, despite a note in the article that it was a joke.

The AI overview has also falsely told users that Eminem delivered a tribute at the funeral of Jeff Bezos’ mum – before the service had taken place.

“This is the latest in a long line of erroneous AI summaries, but this is a particularly problematic example for various reasons,” professor Andrew Chadwick, who works in Loughborough University’s department of communication and media, told Big Issue.

“Even in the world of elite football, $14m is a large sum for any kind of donation, and to get this plain wrong for a well known public figure is remarkable. Commentators often complain that AI is poor at handling subtlety and context but this is not one of those cases: it’s just very poor performance from the AI.

“Google might respond by saying that users should follow the source links that it now provides alongside its summaries. But there is emerging evidence that search users are becoming less likely to click links and are becoming more reliant on the bare text of AI summaries. We can see how this is even more likely to be the case in the world of mobile browsing on phones – now the most popular way of accessing online news.”

A spokesperson for Google told Big Issue: “We aim to surface relevant, high quality information in all our Search features and we continue to raise the bar for quality with ongoing updates and improvements.”

At the time of publication, after Big Issue had handed examples of false information in the AI summaries to Google, the summaries had not changed. 

The spokesperson added: “When issues arise – like if our features misinterpret web content or miss some context – we use those examples to improve and take appropriate action under our policies.”

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