What's the difference between a fake thinktank and a real thinktank?
Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
21–30 of 49 posts
Re: Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
#22what 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.
The Guardian article states that it doesn't exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no listed physical address, no named staff and no bylines on any reports. Their terms of use reference the laws of "the state in which the Institute is established" which isn't named.
It seems very impressive when you open it. That appears to be the point: the Israeli government's position presented as neutral, academic policy research purpose built for search LLMs to scrape and serve up in an AI overview as fact.
Re: Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
#23[flagged]
That is a completely different article about a completely different case.
Re: Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
The main non-standard thing on that page is the attribution. > This material is distributed by Piro, Inc. on behalf of Havas Media Germany GmbH on behalf of the Israel Government Advertising Agency (LaPam). Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC
Finally a win for the German "impressum" requirement!
Tell me more about this!
Re: Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
#25Just 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 deliberate…
(insert meme of multiple Spider-Men pointing at each other here)
Re: Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
#26Just 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 deliberate…
Hanover Institute does not claim to be a US think tank. Their about page is very clear about their affiliation.
> This one is deliberately publishing material optimized to influence/cite in LLM answers.
Isn't that just good SEO?
Re: Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
#27Criticizing Israel isn't allowed on HN
870+ comments not blocked on its prior listing here eight days ago.
Re: Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
#28what 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.
Yeah but this is especially interesting because it’s Israel doing it and Israel bad. Just don’t look at the thousands of other think tanks, universities, politicians and their funding that comes from other sources.
Re: Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
#29Criticizing Israel isn't allowed on HN
Do you think there are more posts about Israel here, or any other non-US nation?
I might do the math and come back. I’m certain Israel is wildly over presented in attention on HN.
Re: Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
#30Previous discussion