Did AI hallucinate a Halloween Parade and put hundreds of people on Dublin's streets? {Updated}

{Update: Ciaran O'Connor from ISD, author of the below mentioned report on “The Irish Channel”, reached out to the site behind the fake Halloween parade listing - and they have admitted that "about 30%" of the content is AI Generated - see end for details}

Last night hundreds of people gathered on Dublin's O'Connell St to watch a Halloween Parade that did not exist; a spookily well timed rise of the Zombie Internet?

It looks from reporting like the listing for the parade originated on a website called https://myspirithalloween.com/, a site with all the hallmarks of an AI slop site.

As I wrote about in The Irish Times recently;

“Slop” is a word that may make anyone who has worked in a pub think of the end-of-night remnants of discarded drinks congealing in a bucket. It is also the neologism for the low-effort, mass produced AI-generated content that is clogging everything online from search engine results to social media feeds.

The "My Spirit Halloween" site has some tells that it might be part of the emerging "zombie internet". The home page is a hodge podge of generic and likely scraped or AI generated content and spammy weight loss ads. The domain is likely trying to ride on the coat tails of "Spirit Halloween", an iconic chain of pop-up costume shops in the US with a famed business model. The "contact us" section at the end announces that the domain is for sale.

While the site has genuine event listings, many appear to have AI generated thumbnails, so are likely to have been scraped off other sites. Others are downright are suspect. There is no longer has a listing for last night's parade, but it may have potentially "hallucinated" other events.

{An AI "hallucination" is when a chatbot or other generation tool creates outputs that are nonsensical or inaccurate.}

There is a listing for an event in the "Knights & Conquests Heritage Centre" in Granard. The place is real but the event looks suspicious - when I looked it up, the centre was hosting "Halloween MedEvil" day time walks, but their website, Facebook page and Eventbrite had nothing about a 1 hour event at midnight on the morning of Halloween. (I have called the Centre to confirm, but have had no reply yet)

And when you click through to the event, you get a super spamming looking page full of ads, and popups.

The darker side of slop in Ireland

While this might be the first time people have been moved to gather on Irish streets because of an AI hallucination, it is not the first instance of the phenomenon here.

The Institute for Strategic Dialogue released a pretty extensive report a few weeks ago about "The Irish Channel", which they describe as:

"a website and associated social media accounts that has emerged as a highly active hub of misinformation in Ireland. The website gained notoriety in June 2024 following its publication of an article containing fabricated quotes and false claims alleging election interference during the local elections."

ISD found that a good portion of the content "appears to have been generated using AI, with basic factual errors and non-existent citations being found on more than one article on the Irish Channel website."

This included quote attributed to Fine Gael, Transparency International Ireland, DCU’s Dr. Eoin O’Malley, and a "Dr. Claire McNamara, a lecturer in political science at Trinity College Dublin". The first three confirmed to The Journal that the quotes were fabricated; "Dr. Clare McNamara" doesn't exist.

This AI generated content site had a much darker side. ISD found that

"Accounts on social media and messaging platforms linked to the Irish Channel were found to feature white supremacist conspiracy theories, antisemitic hate and support for Adolf Hitler."

And this is relevant for the upcoming election too. According to ISD:

"the Irish Channel has forged close ties with the Irish Freedom Party and has, over time, become a key media distribution and broadcasting arm for the party... This Irish Channel case study illustrates how small, far-right political parties can use digital media platforms and social media accounts to develop alternative media networks, promote their ideology, grow their audience, spread hateful and harmful misinformation and recruit supporters online."

Update: Thanks to ISD's Ciaran O'Connor for reaching out to the site (and letting me know and post what he found)

ICYMI

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