Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs ordered the operation, which used fake social media accounts urging U.S. lawmakers to fund Israel’s military, according to officials and documents about the effort.
    • pingvenoOPEnglish
      6·
      6 months ago

      I do remember discussions about whether certain subreddits were being targeted, but it was never clear to me. I would be curious to see any report on that.

      • nekandro
        6·
        6 months ago

        r/worldnews has always been astroturfed by State Department mouthpieces…

      • filister@lemmy.world
        4·
        6 months ago

        Of course there are.

        r/world news turned into an echo chamber of likely minded bots and shills who parrot IDF statement. The other day many of their users were claiming that there is no such thing as famine in Gaza despite every humanitarian organisation operating there stating otherwise. And only Hamas fighters are looting the trucks for personal gains.

        I just want to see those people if their children are starving, what they will do and how they will feel.

  • AutoTL;DR@lemmings.worldBEnglish
    1·
    6 months ago

    This is the best summary I could come up with:

    Israel organized and paid for an influence campaign last year targeting U.S. lawmakers and the American public with pro-Israel messaging, as it aimed to foster support for its actions in the war with Gaza, according to officials involved in the effort and documents related to the operation.

    The accounts focused on U.S. lawmakers, particularly ones who are Black and Democrats, such as Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the House minority leader from New York, and Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia, with posts urging them to continue funding Israel’s military.

    The Israeli government’s connection to the influence operation, which The New York Times verified with four current and former members of the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and documents about the campaign, has not previously been reported.

    Iran, North Korea, China, Russia and the United States are widely believed to back similar efforts around the world, but often mask their involvement by outsourcing the work to private companies or running them through a third country.

    The campaign also created three fake news sites with names like Non-Agenda and UnFold Magazine, which stole and rewrote material from outlets including CNN and The Wall Street Journal to promote Israel’s stance during the war, according to FakeReporter’s analysis.

    OpenAI said Stoic had created fictional personas and biographies meant to stand in for real people on social media services used in Israel, Canada and the United States to post anti-Islamic messages.

    The original article contains 1,206 words, the summary contains 233 words. Saved 81%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!