Georgetown student, 19, who died in tragic accident falls victim to ghoulish ‘obituary pirates’ who post memorials filled with LIES to rake in Google ad revenue – with LA writer who’s still ALIVE also targeted

A 19-year-old Georgetown student who died in a tragic accident has been exploited by a growing group of “death pirates” spreading false information online for clicks.

Matthew Sakhman fell onto the New York City subway tracks on New Year’s Eve and was killed by an oncoming train.

Within hours, AI had written news articles about the incident and inaccurate obituaries for Sakhman quickly spread online.

Some details in the fake memorials, such as Sakhman’s age and home state, were inaccurate. But others went so far as to claim he was murdered, with one claiming he was stabbed at a subway station in the Bronx.

The Georgetown student fell into New York City subway tracks on New Year’s Eve and was killed by an oncoming train

Sakhman and a friend were messing around on the platform of the East Broadway stop in Manhattan when he fell onto the tracks and was killed instantly by a train entering the station.

But his family said a large number of stories published online were “completely wrong”.

“There were sites I had never heard of, information that was completely wrong, it didn’t add up,” a family friend told the newspaper. New York Times.

“I was looking for the truth,” explained Devan Mehrish, 19, a childhood friend. “But I didn’t find it there.”

“We tried to figure out what happened, but we saw some strange things,” said David Lombardi, the owner of a daycare and furniture store in Nantucket where Sachman had had a summer job.

“I just stopped and thought, ‘This doesn’t feel right.’

In “obituary piracy,” scammers use AI to create obituaries for popular names and collect ad revenue from the clicks.

Experts told the Times that such articles would generate only about $100 a month from advertising revenue, and fake obituaries like Sakhman’s would only generate a penny or two. But if they do enough, this can quickly add up.

LA Times journalist Deborah Vankin found fake obituaries online about her while she was alive

“The obituaries, written by fictional journalists, were part of an elaborate death hoax created by anonymous scammers who used my name as clickbait,” Vankin wrote

A plethora of YouTube videos with narrators speaking English, Urdu and other languages ​​also emerged, spreading misinformation about Sakhman’s death.

Some said he was a famous singer or actor, and others perpetuated the lie that he had been murdered.

“What these content farms do is monitor SEO and Google input all day long and when they see an outbreak, they seize on it and publish hoaxes as clickbait content,” said NewsGuard’s AI and Foreign Influence editor.

‘It’s all about the financial returns. Take advantage of search results, what people are interested in, and publish fake news around it to drive people to their site and get money for advertising.”

An LA Times journalist fell victim to a similar scam, in which fake obituaries were published about her online while she was still alive.

“The obituaries, written by fictional journalists, were part of an elaborate death hoax created by anonymous scammers who used my name as clickbait,” Deborah Vankin wrote in the LA times.

One of the obituaries read: “Deborah Vankin, a leading arts and culture reporter for the Los Angeles Times and an esteemed professor at Emerson College, made an indelible mark on the worlds of media and education.”

Another wrote: ‘Deborah Vankin’s family is feeling very sad that she has passed away. She was an important person to them and they miss her very much.’

As with Sakhman, YouTube videos detailing Vankin’s fake death also appeared online, much to the horror of her parents and brother.

“Deborah Vankin’s family feels very sad about her passing. She was an important person to them, and they miss her dearly,” a fake obituary read

“It’s a phishing trick, an attempt to get clicks or viewers,” said Elijah Dittersdorf, owner of LA-based Mom’s Computer, a company that works with seniors to prevent scams and reduce damage.

Dittersdorf explained that around 2021, he started seeing fake obituaries like this one, targeting “people with names, but not necessarily the Kardashians.”

“It’s happened to a small number of our clients – one was a popular actress of the ’70s and ’80s, another was a well-known divorce lawyer, another a prominent (figure) in the Hollywood media,” he said.

‘There is often an action to obtain your data and ultimately defraud you. But the most important thing is clicks and views.

‘They want to grow their channel. Clicks make money.’