Rappler’s policy on generative AI

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We prioritize safety, transparency, and strict adherence to journalistic standards and ethics and Philippine data privacy laws

As an independent newsroom committed to a culture of innovation and experimentation, Rappler integrates artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize operations while ensuring that technology does not supersede the editorial judgment of its editors and staff.

Our framework prioritizes safety, transparency, and strict adherence to journalistic standards and ethics and Philippine data privacy laws.

Here are our guiding principles:

• Human oversight: All AI-assisted content must undergo rigorous human editing.
• Accountability: Writers, editors, and the rest of the content staff share full legal and ethical responsibility for all output, including AI-generated errors or “hallucinations.”
• Transparency: Any content assisted by AI includes a clear disclosure.
• Verification: AI is never a primary source. All factual claims and citations must be cross-referenced against reputable, human-verified sources.

These principles stem from the guidelines on AI that we published in 2023.

We utilize AI to enhance research, story planning, and user experience:

• Rai chatbot: Provides factual answers based exclusively on Rappler’s published archives.
• NewsPulse: An agentic AI tool that assists editors with SEO and trending topic alerts.
• Summarization and curation: AI automates text/audio summaries and content tagging within our CMS.
• Data processing: AI assists in vibe-coding visualizations and generating preliminary profiles for large datasets, which are then verified by journalists.

Absolute prohibitions

To protect editorial integrity and source safety, we strictly prohibit:

1. Autonomous publication: No content — articles, scripts, videos, or social posts — is published without human intervention.
2. Unofficial services: Personnel may not use personal AI accounts for company data.
3. Source protection: Inputting confidential documents or investigative leads into third-party AI tools is forbidden without explicit source consent.
4. Visual manipulation: We prohibit using AI to add, move, or remove elements in news photography. Photos must represent reality.
5. Synthetic deception: The creation of deepfakes or non-consensual synthetic media is banned.

Certain tasks are permitted only under rigorous human review:

• Translation and summaries: Native-speaking editors must conduct line-by-line reviews for static reports. Programmatic translations (on-demand widgets) must carry a prominent disclaimer.
• Creative assets: AI may generate conceptual illustrations for opinion or feature pieces (labeled as “AI-Generated”), but never to mimic real-world events or people.
• Notetaking: Only Enterprise-tier accounts are permitted. Tools must be disabled during sensitive or confidential discussions.

Governance and partnerships

The Rappler Data Governance Committee oversees all AI implementation, conducting regular audits and managing tool access. This policy extends to our partners:

• Photographers must provide metadata/RAW files; AI enhancements must be disclosed.
• Stringers must disclose AI use (e.g., transcription or research) at the time of filing.

This policy is reviewed annually to adapt to the evolving technological and legal landscape. For queries related to crawling, scraping, and reusing of Rappler content, refer to our Content Use Policy. – Rappler.com