Description: An Israeli government-backed communications campaign reportedly operated a website presenting itself as the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, despite reporting finding no corresponding established think tank. The site published material designed for chatbot retrieval, and testing found ChatGPT and Perplexity citing Hanover content in neutral queries.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Perplexity , OpenAI , Large language model developers and Chatbot developers developed an AI system deployed by Piro, Inc. , Israel Government Advertising Agency , Information manipulation actors in Israel , Information manipulation actors , Havas Media Germany GmbH , Hanover Institute for Public Policy and Government of Israel, which harmed Public discourse integrity , Perplexity users , General public of the United States , General public , Epistemic integrity , ChatGPT users and Chatbot users.
Alleged implicated AI systems: Perplexity , Res generative engine optimization platform , Perplexity Answer Engine , Large language models , Hanover Institute for Public Policy website , ChatGPT and Chatbots
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1659
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2026-08-14
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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FIRST IN PI --- FARA FRIDAY: Israel has launched a new campaign to influence how large-language models like ChatGPT are answering questions about Gaza and the Israel Defense Forces amid declining public support for the country across the U.…
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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…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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