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> And it's all because of ads. Not really. A while ago there was a news piece stating that Israel was behind a series of fake think-tanks with very accessible

> And it's all because of ads. Not really. A while ago there was a news piece stating that Israel was behind a series of fake think-tanks with very accessible websites which were created with the express purpose of feeding AI agents with alternative facts aligned with their foreign policy. If anyone has the link at hand, please post it.

tencentshill 1mo ago
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank-israel-ai-propaganda https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank...
- locknitpicker 1mo ago
  Thank you. Past HN discussions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392 (884 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447600
- nickphx 1mo ago
  Ah nice, the site uses nextjs/vercel and is hosted by AWS ...
  - spockz 1mo ago
    Why is this significant? Many sites are setup like that.
    - mschuster91 1mo ago
      Because the pro-Palestine folks just love to drag their pet peeve into literally everything [1]. [1] https://techforpalestine.org/vercel https://techforpalestine.org/vercel
      - ChoGGi 1mo ago
        Not liking companies that support genocide is a pet peeve?
        mschuster91 1mo ago
        It isn't even a settled question that there is a genocide. Anyway, my issue with them is that they love to derail every debate on the internet by injecting their personal gripes regarding the conflict. Sure, there are a bunch of morons on the Zionist side as well, but in general, barely anyone spams about the topic on Mamdani related news for example. In a thread about the conflict, yeah, debating the conflict is on topic. But in a thread that has zero business dealing with the conflict at all and just casually mentions a company that happens to be active in Israel? Now that is (for me) pure derailing.
        KoftaBob 1mo ago
        > It isn't even a settled question that there is a genocide. Israel themselves seem pretty settled on it: https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260902-israel-organised-and-prepared-to-remove-gaza-population-if-us-gives-green-light-katz https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260902-israel-orga...
        mschuster91 1mo ago
        That's election blathering, it's less than two months and as the Israeli (far-)right is looking for a serious defeat [1], they are trying to mobilize their respective bases. Especially the ultraorthodox crowd is going to get hit hard, the rest of Israel is extremely pissed off at them due to their insistence on not having to serve in the military. And let me be clear: all of those currently in power in Israel deserve a court trial and a lengthy prison term for incitement of racial hatred, and everyone in charge of the military and police a war crimes investigation. [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/09/02/israel-s-right-threatened-with-possible-electoral-defeat-fractures-and-radicalizes_6757096_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/09/02/i...
    - nickphx 27d ago
      because nextjs is a bloated pile of shit.
SoftTalker 1mo ago
That sounds very plausible too. Propaganda/spin has always been a component of mass media.
bjt 1mo ago
There are incentives other than marketing, but I doubt the SEO company referred to by the ancestor comment is planning to do lots of business in the political propaganda space.
monster_truck 1mo ago
Same difference tbh
grumbelbart2 1mo ago
Sure maybe, but the online ad market is USD 400b give or take, which vastly outmatches any such budgets.
- joquarky 1mo ago
  Imagine what humanity could accomplish if marketing were taboo.
  - eru 1mo ago
    How are you going to learn about useful new goods and services? It is already legal for companies not to do any marketing.
xenadu02 1mo ago
Some of us have been predicting this for a while. People with an axe to grind or states with an agenda are already devoting tremendous effort toward affecting LLM models and it is very difficult to determine real from astroturf for humans let alone an LLM trying to train. Much like PageRank now that the cat's out of the bag all the current approaches may prove to be useless in the long run.
astura 1mo ago
>If anyone has the link at hand, please post it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank-israel-ai-propaganda https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank...
kspacewalk2 1mo ago
If by "not really" you mean it's not all because of ads, some governments dabble in it too, you're right. But it's still overwhelmingly because of ads.
- csallen 1mo ago
  It's just incentives in general. Humans are self-motivated creatures, and in the absence of meaningful consequences they'll often do what they're incentivized to do, even if it harms others. The internet is uniquely devoid of consequences (esp. reputational consequences, social faux pas, etc.) and makes effort expenditure minimal. So you get lots of bad behavior. I think "ads vs not ads" is maybe the wrong way to model it. Ultimately people are just doing what benefits themselves across every dimension possible.
- trimethylpurine 1mo ago
  Campaign funding and lobbying being legal activities implies that governments participate in advertising. I can't separate those. But you're right, I think that's what they meant.
trimethylpurine 1mo ago
You wrote "not really" and then described a literal ad.
latexr 1mo ago
> alternative facts Let’s please not revive that term, it has done enough harm. From its inception, it has just been a way to make falsehoods sounds legitimate. Even the person who came up with it seemed to be swallowing a whole toad while speaking it for the first time.
- rhyperior 1mo ago
  Then call them what they are - lies.

tencentshill 1mo ago

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank-israel-ai-propaganda https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank...

locknitpicker 1mo ago
Thank you. Past HN discussions https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392 (884 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313477 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447600 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49447600
nickphx 1mo ago
Ah nice, the site uses nextjs/vercel and is hosted by AWS ...
- spockz 1mo ago
  Why is this significant? Many sites are setup like that.
  - mschuster91 1mo ago
    Because the pro-Palestine folks just love to drag their pet peeve into literally everything [1]. [1] https://techforpalestine.org/vercel https://techforpalestine.org/vercel
    - ChoGGi 1mo ago
      Not liking companies that support genocide is a pet peeve?
      - mschuster91 1mo ago
        It isn't even a settled question that there is a genocide. Anyway, my issue with them is that they love to derail every debate on the internet by injecting their personal gripes regarding the conflict. Sure, there are a bunch of morons on the Zionist side as well, but in general, barely anyone spams about the topic on Mamdani related news for example. In a thread about the conflict, yeah, debating the conflict is on topic. But in a thread that has zero business dealing with the conflict at all and just casually mentions a company that happens to be active in Israel? Now that is (for me) pure derailing.
        KoftaBob 1mo ago
        > It isn't even a settled question that there is a genocide. Israel themselves seem pretty settled on it: https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260902-israel-organised-and-prepared-to-remove-gaza-population-if-us-gives-green-light-katz https://www.france24.com/en/middle-east/20260902-israel-orga...
        mschuster91 1mo ago
        That's election blathering, it's less than two months and as the Israeli (far-)right is looking for a serious defeat [1], they are trying to mobilize their respective bases. Especially the ultraorthodox crowd is going to get hit hard, the rest of Israel is extremely pissed off at them due to their insistence on not having to serve in the military. And let me be clear: all of those currently in power in Israel deserve a court trial and a lengthy prison term for incitement of racial hatred, and everyone in charge of the military and police a war crimes investigation. [1] https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/09/02/israel-s-right-threatened-with-possible-electoral-defeat-fractures-and-radicalizes_6757096_4.html https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2026/09/02/i...
  - nickphx 27d ago
    because nextjs is a bloated pile of shit.

SoftTalker 1mo ago

That sounds very plausible too. Propaganda/spin has always been a component of mass media.

bjt 1mo ago

There are incentives other than marketing, but I doubt the SEO company referred to by the ancestor comment is planning to do lots of business in the political propaganda space.

monster_truck 1mo ago

Same difference tbh

grumbelbart2 1mo ago

Sure maybe, but the online ad market is USD 400b give or take, which vastly outmatches any such budgets.

joquarky 1mo ago
Imagine what humanity could accomplish if marketing were taboo.
- eru 1mo ago
  How are you going to learn about useful new goods and services? It is already legal for companies not to do any marketing.

xenadu02 1mo ago

Some of us have been predicting this for a while. People with an axe to grind or states with an agenda are already devoting tremendous effort toward affecting LLM models and it is very difficult to determine real from astroturf for humans let alone an LLM trying to train. Much like PageRank now that the cat's out of the bag all the current approaches may prove to be useless in the long run.

astura 1mo ago

>If anyone has the link at hand, please post it. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank-israel-ai-propaganda https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/aug/26/fake-thinktank...

kspacewalk2 1mo ago

If by "not really" you mean it's not all because of ads, some governments dabble in it too, you're right. But it's still overwhelmingly because of ads.

csallen 1mo ago
It's just incentives in general. Humans are self-motivated creatures, and in the absence of meaningful consequences they'll often do what they're incentivized to do, even if it harms others. The internet is uniquely devoid of consequences (esp. reputational consequences, social faux pas, etc.) and makes effort expenditure minimal. So you get lots of bad behavior. I think "ads vs not ads" is maybe the wrong way to model it. Ultimately people are just doing what benefits themselves across every dimension possible.
trimethylpurine 1mo ago
Campaign funding and lobbying being legal activities implies that governments participate in advertising. I can't separate those. But you're right, I think that's what they meant.

trimethylpurine 1mo ago

You wrote "not really" and then described a literal ad.

latexr 1mo ago

> alternative facts Let’s please not revive that term, it has done enough harm. From its inception, it has just been a way to make falsehoods sounds legitimate. Even the person who came up with it seemed to be swallowing a whole toad while speaking it for the first time.

rhyperior 1mo ago
Then call them what they are - lies.