The Israeli government has launched an influence crusade aimed at U. S. lawmakers and the general public with messages aimed at earning its reputation for its conduct in the Gaza war, the New York Times reported Wednesday.
Citing four unnamed officials, the Times report said the crusade was carried out through Stoic, a Tel Aviv-based political marketing firm, on the orders of Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs.
The crusade reportedly relied on “hundreds of accounts posing as genuine Americans,” posting pro-Israel content on various social media platforms, including X, Facebook, and Instagram.
The fake accounts targeted Black Democratic lawmakers, such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N. Y. , and Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga. , and posted messages urging them to continue investing in Israel’s war effort.
According to the Times, the crusade remains active on X and is based on content generated by OpenAI’s ChatGPT chatbot.
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Last week, Meta and OpenAI published separate risk assessment reports indicating that they had cracked down on covert influence operations carried out through Stoic. In its quarterly risk report, Meta said it removed 510 accounts, 11 pages and one organization on Facebook, as well as 32 Instagram accounts originating from Israel for “coordinated and inauthentic behavior. ” The social media giant said those accounts posed as “Jewish students, African Americans, and ‘concerned’ citizens” and posted primarily English-language articles about the war in Gaza. The messages included praise for the Israeli army’s moves, complaints from the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and claims that “radical Islam” posed a risk to “national values. ” Liberals in Canada. Meta said the activity was similar to that of Stoic, who banned access to the platform and obtained a cease and desist from the company. In its report, OpenAI said Stoic used its AI team to generate and edit anti-Hamas, anti-Qatar and pro-Israel content. OpenAI said the operation carries out several campaigns similar to the Gaza standoff and relations between other people of Jewish and Muslim faiths.
Meta’s report said Stoic’s network “commented on the Facebook pages of local and foreign media organizations, as well as political and public figures, adding U. S. lawmakers. Their comments included links to the operation’s websites and drew critical responses from genuine users who called them propaganda. .
A former Meta engineer is suing the company in California state court, alleging that the social media giant fired him for trying to repair bugs that removed Palestinian Instagram posts, Reuters reported on Tuesday. Ferras Hamad, who is Palestinian-American, says the company is biased in its handling of content similar to the Gaza war. The lawsuit also accuses Meta of being biased against Palestinians by removing internal communications in which workers discussed the deaths of loved ones in Gaza or investigated the use of the word Palestinian. flag emoji.
Israel Secretly Targets U. S. Lawmakers as Crusade to Influence Gaza War (New York Times)
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