MSN removed several flawed articles from partner publisher Race Track after a September 2023 report highlighted garbled text and apparent copying. But according to that report, more Race Track pieces continued appearing through MSN afterward. The episode exposed a gap between Microsoft’s published rules for partner content and what readers encountered; it did not establish why the moderation failures happened.
What MSN removed
In a September 14, 2023 report, Futurism’s Victor Tangermann described several Race Track articles that had appeared through MSN and were later removed. The best-known example concerned former NBA player Brandon Hunter. Futurism characterized the article as apparently AI-generated and likely produced by an algorithm that plagiarized a TMZ Sports blog.
The report also cited Race Track items about Kevin Porter Jr.’s arrest and NFL analyst Joy Taylor. The latter mangled her name as “Pleasure Taylor.” These examples were presented as part of a broader pattern of incoherent or apparently copied content, not as findings from a disclosed Microsoft audit.
More Race Track stories appeared after the takedowns
Futurism reported that Race Track continued publishing and that new material continued to be syndicated through MSN after the removals. The later examples it identified included:
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- “7 Causes to Strive Golfing as a Scholar”, which Futurism said appeared to copy a 2022 Golf Monthly article.
- A Sergio Perez Formula 1 story that referred to Red Bull as “Purple Bull.”
The report also recalled an earlier MSN travel guide to Ottawa that recommended a local food bank to tourists; Futurism said MSN published and then deleted that guide. Together, these accounts describe content that appeared and was removed, alongside further partner material. They do not show that the same material remained available after a takedown or that every item had the same cause.
What the report establishes—and what it does not
Futurism documented examples of article text, reported removals, and described additional Race Track material appearing through MSN. Its judgments that particular stories were AI-generated or plagiarized are journalistic findings. The report did not disclose an internal Microsoft investigation establishing the production process for each article or the reason a specific item escaped moderation.
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The cited sources do not establish how common such failures were across MSN, provide a numerical rate, or identify the internal cause of each moderation failure. The episode is therefore evidence of a reported partner-content problem, not a measure of its overall scale.
What Microsoft’s MSN policy says
Microsoft’s MSN AI content policy prohibits unreviewed AI-generated content except for limited exceptions. It defines AI-assisted content as material with substantial human review or intervention and says partners must meet professional publishing standards.
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The policy also expressly prohibits plagiarism and using AI to rephrase already published work for republication under a different byline or brand. It recommends disclosure when AI assists in creating content and an accountable human byline. Microsoft says it may demote or remove suspected unreviewed AI-generated content and may suspend or terminate partners.
“Unreviewed AI-generated content (AIGC) and ‘generated autonomously by AI’ refer to the generation of an output by an AI system or model without downstream human review or intervention.”
“Any prompt submitted into AI tools to create content (video, text, audio or in combination) that plagiarizes current published works is prohibited.”
Those standards clarify what Microsoft says partners should do; they do not, by themselves, explain why the stories described by Futurism appeared or were removed.
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Why readers should care
MSN distributes material from publishing partners, so a story encountered there may have been produced by a partner rather than written by Microsoft staff. That distinction matters when judging who created an article and who is accountable for it.
For readers using online articles to make decisions—including financial ones—the practical response is to check the named publisher and author, look for the original reporting or cited documents, and confirm consequential claims with reliable primary sources. A platform’s publishing standards are useful, but they are not proof that every syndicated article has been checked successfully.
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