Fake US thinktank funded by Israel floods AI with 560,000 words in 9 days
Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
A pro-Israel messaging site, the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, has published over 560,000 words in nine days, posing as a neutral thinktank to influence AI chatbots. The site, filed with the US Justice Department as a foreign agent for Israel, is part of a $24.9 million campaign routed through Havas Media to game AI outputs. The Guardian's analysis reveals the site's academic facade, with reports citing sources like the World Bank and Amnesty International, but framing content to blunt criticism of Israel. Experts warn the real target is AI training data, making the propaganda harder to detect.
When it regurgitates narratives the chatbot is trained on, it won’t even cite the sources – you won’t be able to fact-check it.
- foolinaround
what makes a thinktank fake?
no real authors?
the about page seems rather standard to me - https://hanoverinstitute.com/hanover/about
Every thinktank has always been established to push some viewpoint.
- neom
Just in case you were as confused as I was... There appear to be two completely different fake think tanks, reported almost simultaneously.
- International Burke Institute (IBI), Claims to be Israeli think tank, Funded by Russia. This one is ChatGPT generated promotion + fake institutional credibility.
- Hanover Institute for Public Policy, Claims to be US think tank, Israeli government funded. This one is deliberately publishing material optimized to influence/cite in LLM answers.
- NDlurker
Previous discussion
- outside1234
This is the future and we all need to be working against it. Are there watchdogs measuring the response of each of the chat interfaces to detect this?
PS. Our US tax dollars are being used to do this. Defund Israel.
- ChrisArchitect
[dupe]
Discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392