Daily Weird News Report
A website posing as a US policy thinktank published more than 560,000 words in nine days while presenting Israel’s positions on issues including alleged war crimes, the treatment of Palestinian prisoners and starvation in Gaza as neutral research, according to an investigation by the Guardian.
The site operates under the name Hanover Institute for Public Policy. The Guardian reported that it could not identify the institute as a legal entity in any jurisdiction. The website lists no physical address, staff members or report bylines, and its terms of use do not identify the state where the institute is supposedly established.
Between 6 and 14 August, the site posted 124 reports, with 73 appearing over just two days. Nearly every headline was phrased as a question that might be submitted to a chatbot, including whether anti-Zionism is antisemitism, whether Israel expelled Palestinians from their land and whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.
The reports use citations from organizations and documents including UN agencies, the World Bank, Amnesty International, the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics and the Genocide Convention. However, the Guardian found recurring language that emphasized the absence of court verdicts on allegations such as genocide or apartheid. A disclaimer describing casualty and aid figures as coming from “a party to the events” appeared in 55 reports, the newspaper said.
The site was filed with the US Justice Department under the Foreign Agents Registration Act by Piro Inc, a New York media company, as material distributed for the Israeli government. The Guardian reported that Piro’s contract was worth $1 million across two work orders.
The website also appeared to have been built for what the industry calls generative-engine optimization: producing online material intended to be cited or used by systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Claude and Gemini. An earlier version contained a file associated with Res, a platform that markets services to businesses seeking citations from AI systems. Res founder Hai Tran registered as a subcontractor to Piro on the Israeli account, according to the report.
The Hanover Institute’s funding page was later changed. The Guardian reported that the wider campaign involved tens of millions of dollars routed through companies including Havas Media, with Justice Department filings recording payments of $15 million to Clock Tower X and more than $9.8 million to Targeted Communications Global.
It remains unclear how much influence the Hanover material will have on AI training data. The Guardian said its chatbot tests found ChatGPT linking to four Hanover reports while also warning users about controversy surrounding the institute’s funding and purpose.
