AI incident #1659 · 14 August 2026

Purported Hanover Institute for Public Policy Reportedly Targeted Chatbot Responses in Israeli Government-Backed Influence Campaign

Open on the AI Incident Database 2 news reports Snapshot 7 Sep 2026

What happened

An Israeli government-backed communications campaign reportedly operated a website presenting itself as the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, despite reporting finding no corresponding established think tank. The site published material designed for chatbot retrieval, and testing found ChatGPT and Perplexity citing Hanover content in neutral queries.

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News reports (2)

Coverage catalogued by the AI Incident Database. Titles link to the original publisher; the text is not reproduced here.

14 Aug 2026
Israeli PR wants to answer your ChatGPT questions
politico.com · Jacob Wendler · AIID #7733
26 Aug 2026
Fake US thinktank set up and funded by Israel sought to game AI for propaganda
theguardian.com · Jason Wilson · AIID #7851

Who was involved

Alleged deployer: Piro Inc., Israel Government Advertising Agency, Information Manipulation Actors In Israel, Information Manipulation Actors, Havas Media Germany Gmbh, Hanover Institute For Public Policy, Government Of Israel
Alleged developer: Perplexity, Openai, Large Language Model Developers, Chatbot Developers
Alleged harmed party: Public Discourse Integrity, Perplexity Users, General Public Of The United States, General Public, Epistemic Integrity, Chatgpt Users, Chatbot Users

Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)

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