The Guardian article states that it doesn't exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no listed physical address, no named staff and no bylines on any reports. Their terms of use reference the laws of "the state in which the Institute is established" which isn't named.
It seems very impressive when you open it. That appears to be the point: the Israeli government's position presented as neutral, academic policy research purpose built for search LLMs to scrape and serve up in an AI overview as fact.
> It seems very impressive when you open it. That appears to be the point: the Israeli government's position presented as neutral, academic policy research purpose built for search LLMs to scrape and serve up in an AI overview as fact.
Given how much gaming of LLMs is undoubtedly already occurring it's more surprising how transparent and limited this is really.
The $10 million in funding is also seemingly a drop in the bucket to the billions anti-Israel and pro-Islamist governments like Qatar appear to be spending to influence actual academics wholesale [1,2]. No need to setup fake think tanks when you can just pay for Muslim Brotherhood to spread into western academia [3] (as far as pro-Israeli think tanks go at least ISGAP has actual meetings of scholars).
I have to say that is almost an excellent point - think tanks are ultimately propaganda outfits, so it is hard to have a "fake" think tank which is merely that.
But in this case the "fake" label means that the think tank itself doesn't actually exist. The article expands on the topic with "apparently does not exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no physical address, and carries no named staff and no bylines on any of its reports".
So if they hired some people to set up the HIPP and posted the same material it'd be a real think tank, but because the institute doesn't seem to exist at all it is a fake think tank. That isn't a comment on the writing produced.
I think it's a misunderstanding of what is alleged here. It's not alleged that the website produces propaganda. It's alleged that the website is fake, designed to seem like a legitimate source of information where info about it is just not available, in order to get AI to scoop up what it writes and treat it like a legitimate source of information vs how it would treat a real think tank which has a point of view that's documented and known in the world
A real think tank with real authors and disclosed funding sources could have something one can learn about it and its political leanings. A fake one can seem impartial due to little info existing about it (since it's fake).
That does kind of make it sound like think tanks are normally either straightforward or fundamentally honest about their agendas, which they pretty much never are. Even the ones that register and have DBAs fund reports that end up in scientific journals and publish articles through chains of obfuscatory intermediaries.
Really only possible in broken-futureland, to have a company whose sole purpose is to get paid to have an opinion.
The main non-standard thing on that page is the attribution.
> This material is distributed by Piro, Inc. on behalf of Havas Media Germany GmbH on behalf of the Israel Government Advertising Agency (LaPam). Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC
German law forces you to provide address/contact info on any commercial website (just running ads qualifies).
But this is often "abused" by lawyers to basically send cease-and-desist letters to small websites that don't have one (typically because they're unaware of the law, not because of malicious intent).
On any website, except one that can be proven to have absolutely no commercial utility whatsoever.
Your blog qualifies as commercial if you write about software at all, because someone might see your software posts and use it to influence a hiring decision.
> A pro-Israel messaging website badged with the name of a thinktank that does not exist
> The site publishes in the name of the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, which apparently does not exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no physical address, and carries no named staff and no bylines on any of its reports.
In the article, if you'd like to read it, it's quite informative about how AI poisoning or AI SEO will go forward in the coming years, imo
Yeah but this is especially interesting because it’s Israel doing it and Israel bad. Just don’t look at the thousands of other think tanks, universities, politicians and their funding that comes from other sources.
I'm no expert, but I'm guessing it's the fact that there's no actual thinking going on and it's AI generated slop designed to manipulate LLMs and subsequently the populace.
Just in case you were as confused as I was... There appear to be two completely different fake think tanks, reported almost simultaneously.
- International Burke Institute (IBI), Claims to be Israeli think tank, Funded by Russia. This one is ChatGPT generated promotion + fake institutional credibility.
- Hanover Institute for Public Policy, Claims to be US think tank, Israeli government funded. This one is deliberately publishing material optimized to influence/cite in LLM answers.
what makes a thinktank fake? no real authors? the about page seems rather standard to me - https://hanoverinstitute.com/hanover/about
Every thinktank has always been established to push some viewpoint.
The Guardian article states that it doesn't exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no listed physical address, no named staff and no bylines on any reports. Their terms of use reference the laws of "the state in which the Institute is established" which isn't named.
It seems very impressive when you open it. That appears to be the point: the Israeli government's position presented as neutral, academic policy research purpose built for search LLMs to scrape and serve up in an AI overview as fact.
> It seems very impressive when you open it. That appears to be the point: the Israeli government's position presented as neutral, academic policy research purpose built for search LLMs to scrape and serve up in an AI overview as fact.
Given how much gaming of LLMs is undoubtedly already occurring it's more surprising how transparent and limited this is really.
The $10 million in funding is also seemingly a drop in the bucket to the billions anti-Israel and pro-Islamist governments like Qatar appear to be spending to influence actual academics wholesale [1,2]. No need to setup fake think tanks when you can just pay for Muslim Brotherhood to spread into western academia [3] (as far as pro-Israeli think tanks go at least ISGAP has actual meetings of scholars).
1: https://www.wsj.com/opinion/does-qatar-fund-antisemitism-at-... 2: https://www.npr.org/2026/02/12/nx-s1-5711359/us-colleges-5-b... 3: https://isgap.org/follow-the-money/
I have to say that is almost an excellent point - think tanks are ultimately propaganda outfits, so it is hard to have a "fake" think tank which is merely that.
But in this case the "fake" label means that the think tank itself doesn't actually exist. The article expands on the topic with "apparently does not exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no physical address, and carries no named staff and no bylines on any of its reports".
So if they hired some people to set up the HIPP and posted the same material it'd be a real think tank, but because the institute doesn't seem to exist at all it is a fake think tank. That isn't a comment on the writing produced.
I think it's a misunderstanding of what is alleged here. It's not alleged that the website produces propaganda. It's alleged that the website is fake, designed to seem like a legitimate source of information where info about it is just not available, in order to get AI to scoop up what it writes and treat it like a legitimate source of information vs how it would treat a real think tank which has a point of view that's documented and known in the world
A real think tank with real authors and disclosed funding sources could have something one can learn about it and its political leanings. A fake one can seem impartial due to little info existing about it (since it's fake).
That does kind of make it sound like think tanks are normally either straightforward or fundamentally honest about their agendas, which they pretty much never are. Even the ones that register and have DBAs fund reports that end up in scientific journals and publish articles through chains of obfuscatory intermediaries.
Really only possible in broken-futureland, to have a company whose sole purpose is to get paid to have an opinion.
The main non-standard thing on that page is the attribution.
> This material is distributed by Piro, Inc. on behalf of Havas Media Germany GmbH on behalf of the Israel Government Advertising Agency (LaPam). Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC
Finally a win for the German "impressum" requirement!
Tell me more about this!
German law forces you to provide address/contact info on any commercial website (just running ads qualifies).
But this is often "abused" by lawyers to basically send cease-and-desist letters to small websites that don't have one (typically because they're unaware of the law, not because of malicious intent).
On any website, except one that can be proven to have absolutely no commercial utility whatsoever.
Your blog qualifies as commercial if you write about software at all, because someone might see your software posts and use it to influence a hiring decision.
> A pro-Israel messaging website badged with the name of a thinktank that does not exist
> The site publishes in the name of the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, which apparently does not exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction, has no physical address, and carries no named staff and no bylines on any of its reports.
In the article, if you'd like to read it, it's quite informative about how AI poisoning or AI SEO will go forward in the coming years, imo
Yeah but this is especially interesting because it’s Israel doing it and Israel bad. Just don’t look at the thousands of other think tanks, universities, politicians and their funding that comes from other sources.
I'm no expert, but I'm guessing it's the fact that there's no actual thinking going on and it's AI generated slop designed to manipulate LLMs and subsequently the populace.
I would have thought AI companies were doing their best to discard AI-generated training data.
Just in case you were as confused as I was... There appear to be two completely different fake think tanks, reported almost simultaneously.
- International Burke Institute (IBI), Claims to be Israeli think tank, Funded by Russia. This one is ChatGPT generated promotion + fake institutional credibility.
- Hanover Institute for Public Policy, Claims to be US think tank, Israeli government funded. This one is deliberately publishing material optimized to influence/cite in LLM answers.
(insert meme of multiple Spider-Men pointing at each other here)
Hanover Institute does not claim to be a US think tank. Their about page is very clear about their affiliation.
> This one is deliberately publishing material optimized to influence/cite in LLM answers.
Isn't that just good SEO?
Previous discussion
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392
[dupe]
Discussions: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49313477
This is the future and we all need to be working against it. Are there watchdogs measuring the response of each of the chat interfaces to detect this?
PS. Our US tax dollars are being used to do this. Defund Israel.
Who else but Quagmire
What's the difference between a fake thinktank and a real thinktank?
Israel? more like the UK with the help of China
Criticizing Israel isn't allowed on HN
870+ comments not blocked on its prior listing here eight days ago.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49337392
Do you think there are more posts about Israel here, or any other non-US nation?
I might do the math and come back. I’m certain Israel is wildly over presented in attention on HN.
Israel is wildly over presented in attention in congress
I would hope it’s over presented because it’s committing genocide
Whatever thoughts you're having right now are antisemitic.