Fake Hanover Institute website targeted chatbot responses in Israeli government campaign
An Israeli government-backed campaign created a fake think tank website called the Hanover Institute for Public Policy and deployed it on an AI-optimized platform to influence chatbot responses on Gaza and Israeli military actions. The site was filed as foreign agent material with the US Justice Department and successfully caused ChatGPT and Perplexity to cite its content.
What happened
A website presenting itself as the Hanover Institute for Public Policy published over half a million words in nine days presenting Israel's official positions on topics including torture of Palestinian prisoners, alleged Israeli war crimes, and starvation in Gaza as neutral research.
The site, built on an AI-optimized platform by Seattle startup Res designed to prime chatbots to cite its content, was filed with the US Justice Department by media production company Piro Inc under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as material distributed for the Israeli government.
Reported impact
ChatGPT and Perplexity both cited the Hanover Institute's material in response to neutral tests, referring to the site's content on Gaza, anti-Zionism and antisemitism.
The campaign was part of a broader effort financed by tens of millions of dollars from the Israeli government routed through Havas Media to prime chatbots to make Israel's arguments automatically.
Index analysis
The Hanover Institute appears not to exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no physical address, carries no named staff and no bylines on its reports.
The site features dozens of question-formatted data reports without named authors, a telltale sign designed to feed data to large language models to optimize their responses.
Governance controls
Piro Inc disclosed the campaign involved a $100,000 contract focused on creation and dissemination of informational materials through publicly distributed content.
The site includes a disclosure statement at the bottom: 'This material is distributed by Piro, Inc. on behalf of Havas Media Germany GmbH on behalf of the Israel Government Advertising Agency (LaPam).'
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.