Clickout Media continued publishing AI-generated articles under former freelancer Ben Touati's byline on Esports Insider after ending his contract.
Touati stopped working for Clickout Media in March 2026. In late May, he discovered articles that had been published in the days after his departure and carried his byline despite not writing or approving them. Press Gazette reported that he later filed a complaint under the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) over the use of his name and personal information.
Clickout Media later removed Touati's byline from the disputed articles and attributed them to another writer. However, TheHolyCoins found that Touati's German Esports Insider author profile remained live at the time of publication and continued to list multiple articles under his byline.
Touati said the company had previously pushed writers to use artificial intelligence to produce content faster, but he resisted relying heavily on the technology. Managers told him there was less work after Esports Insider was deindexed by Google and The Escapist generated little revenue, while increased AI-assisted productivity had reduced the need for freelance writers before his contract ended.
A byline tells readers who produced an article and places responsibility for its accuracy on the named journalist, making its use without permission more serious than undisclosed AI assistance.
Clickout Media Faced Earlier Claims Over AI Writers and Gambling Content
The dispute involving Touati followed earlier scrutiny of Clickout Media’s publishing model across gaming, technology and news websites.
Clickout Media acquired or operated publications including Esports Insider, The Escapist and VideoGamer. Investigations later alleged that journalists were dismissed while articles appeared under artificial author profiles containing fabricated biographies and AI-generated profile photographs.
The company was also accused of using established websites to publish large volumes of gambling, casino and affiliate content.
The practice is often called parasite SEO. Google refers to it as “site reputation abuse,” which occurs when content is placed on an established domain primarily to exploit the site’s ranking signals rather than serve its existing audience.
Google introduced its site reputation abuse policy in March 2024 and later clarified that publisher involvement does not automatically make third-party content compliant. The company said pages can violate the policy when they use a host website’s reputation to secure higher search rankings.
Several websites linked to investigations into site reputation abuse and gambling-related publishing practices subsequently lost Google visibility or were removed from search results, including Cointelegraph. Articles examining the company’s operations were also temporarily deindexed after copyright complaints before Google restored them.
