The Israeli government organized and funded a secret social media influence campaign that attempted to pressure American lawmakers to support Israel's war on Gaza. technology/israel-campaign-gaza-social-media.html”>The New York Times reports.
According to the Times, From Israel The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs allocated around $2 million to the campaign, which used hundreds of fake accounts posing as made-up people to attack US lawmakers. The accounts posed as Americans and posted pro-Israel messages, calling on members of Congress to fund Israeli military operations. The campaigns used OpenAI's ChatGPT to produce the posts and targeted several Black Democrats, such as House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
The Ministry of Diaspora Affairs did not immediately respond to The edgeRequest for comments. He Times reports that the office denied involvement in the campaign. He Times He says the details of the network of accounts come from internal documents and from people involved in the campaign.
The covert influence campaign was one of the efforts frustrated by Meta, according to his quarterly threat report issued at the end of May. In the report, Meta said she had identified a network of more than 500 fake accounts traced to Israel that posted pro-Israel messages on instagram and facebook. Meta noted that the campaign accounts posed as local Jewish students, African Americans and “concerned” citizens and left messages on the pages of legitimate news organizations and public figures. Topics of comments included campus anti-Semitism, calls to release hostages taken during the October 7 Hamas attack, and anti-Islam material. OpenAI similarly reported that there were ai-by-covert-influence-operations/”>interrupted a campaign in Israel using his tools. At the time, it was not known that the Israeli government was behind the campaign. The campaign remains active on x, depending on the Times.
Political actors periodically attempt to manipulate public opinion through coordinated campaigns on social media. In May, TikTok reported that it had stopped more than a dozen such campaigns on its platform, including one originating in China. But Times notes that this is the first time that the Israeli government has been discovered to be coordinating a campaign targeting the United States government.
Like the war in Ukraine, social media has become an indirect battlefield since October 7, where Israelis and Palestinians have tried to gain the support of digital viewers. More than 37,000 Palestinians have died as a result of Israel's siege of Gaza. The United States is a key ally for Israel, as well as the largest arms supplier to the country. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is scheduled to address Congress sometime this summer.
