<
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank-israel-ai-propaganda>
"A pro-Israel messaging website badged with the name of a thinktank that does
not exist has published more than half a million words in nine days, built on a
commercial platform that promises to optimize content so that AI chatbots will
cite it.
The site gives Israel’s position on subjects including the torture of
Palestinian prisoners, Israeli war crimes and whether Israel has deliberately
starved Palestinians in Gaza, all presented as neutral research.
The New York media production company Piro Inc filed the site with the US
justice department this month under the
Foreign Agents Registration Act
(Fara), a 1938 law that requires anyone working for a foreign government to
formally disclose it, as material it distributes for the Israeli government.
The site publishes in the name of the Hanover Institute for Public Policy,
which apparently does not exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no
physical address, and carries no named staff and no bylines on any of its
reports. Its own terms of use are governed by the laws of “the state in which
the Institute is established”, which they decline to name.
The existence of the site was first reported on 14 August. Since then the
institute has added a page headed funding, which states: “An earlier version of
this page said the Institute operated without external funding, and that was
true when it was written.”
The site is one part of a broader effort, financed by tens of millions of
dollars from the Israeli government and routed through third parties including
the European advertising group Havas Media, to prime chatbots to make Israel’s
arguments for it. A contract between Havas and another American firm working on
the campaign commits it to the “deployment of websites and content to deliver
GPT framing results on GPT conversations”.
The
Guardian contacted Piro Inc, Havas Media and the Israeli government
advertising agency LaPam for comment. Comment was also sought via a contact
email address published on the Hanover Institute website.
It comes at a point when Israel’s standing in US public opinion has collapsed,
and when Israeli officials have begun briefing media outlets that money spent
on so-called “Hasbara” efforts at public diplomacy overseas has been wasted."
Via Violet Blue’s
Threat Model - Cybersecurity: September 1, 2026
https://www.patreon.com/violetblue/posts/cybersecurity-1-168281961
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
