The world of photography rumors is a murky one, with specs of yet-to-be-released cameras leaked by insiders supposedly in the know. But for every rumor you may read that has a grain of truth in it, there are a dozen more that are complete and utter hogwash.
While I get why some people with genuine insider info might want to spill the beans about their ill-gotten findings with the wider world, exactly why anyone would make it all up based on nothing concrete whatsoever is anyone's guess. But increasingly it's not even people doing it, with scammers posting stories created by AI to produce clickbait to encourage unsuspecting readers to follow their spam-filled links.
As well-known rumor website Nikon Rumors puts it, "Your favorite scammers behind the well-known clickbait websites are now too lazy even to write a blog post with some made-up specs of a non-existing camera or a lens. They are now using AI to write Nikon rumor posts."
The site ran the text of a bunch of 'rumor' stories about the as-yet-unannounced Nikon Z9 II that are currently doing the rounds through some of the free AI content detectors out there, such as gptzero.me, which, as expected, flagged up the stories as being AI-generated. You can read the full story on Nikon Rumors.
As Nikon Rumors points out, "If a website never reported a single rumor that materialized later, there is a zero chance that they will have the latest scoop on the Nikon Z9 II."
So if you are going to read rumors, it makes sense to get them from sources that are curated by real-live humans – and gives insight onto how trustworthy the rumor is likely to be, such as Nikon Rumors…
Here are our favorite current camera rumors, just take them with a pinch of salt!
