Digital Rights Weekly Update: 14 - 20 August 2026

Policy Insight

The most striking development in our information environment may be that AI agents are becoming trusted sources of information, and are now being deliberately targeted as such. The sophisticated campaign to poison LLMs with manufactured “evidence” about Gaza shows that influence no longer needs to persuade people directly; it can shape the systems people increasingly rely on to tell them what is true. With substantial resources behind these interventions, the information environment is not organic in any way: it is being engineered, quietly and systematically, to whitewash war crimes and deny reality through disinformation. This raises a new policy challenge: how do we protect the integrity of AI-mediated knowledge when powerful actors can manipulate the information ecosystem upstream? The same dynamics are visible elsewhere, from coordinated harassment on X to Meta’s opaque content governance, making transparency and accountability increasingly urgent.

News Digest

Israeli PR wants to answer your ChatGPT questions

POLITICO 

Israel has launched a new campaign to influence how large-language models like ChatGPT are answering questions about Gaza and the Israel Defense Forces amid declining public support for the country across the U.S. political spectrum. French PR firm Havas Media, which runs the lion’s share of Israel’s FARA-registered foreign influence work in the U.S., appears to have stood up an “institute” aimed at feeding LLMs positive information about Israel via one of its subcontractors, boutique ad agency Piro, Inc. In a trove of FARA documents filed with the Justice Department in the last week — which have not previously been reported — Piro disclosed that over a dozen articles on the Hanover Institute for Public Policy’s website were part of a $100,000 campaign focused on “the creation and dissemination of factual, source-supported informational materials intended to educate the U.S. public regarding Israel and related issues through publicly distributed content.” The institute’s website features dozens of “data reports” with no named authors, each of which features questions like “Is the IDF the World’s Most Moral Army?” and “Is There a Policy of Starvation in Gaza?” — a telltale sign that the articles are designed to feed data to LLMs. The site’s “About” page says “The Hanover Institute for Public Policy studies the inputs fueling antisemitism in the United States, and publishes what the evidence shows,” adding that its unidentified founder “traces this work to a moment in childhood.”

How Israel is trying to shape what AI tells users about Gaza

Arab News

 For decades, governments seeking to influence foreign public opinion have relied on familiar tools: advertising campaigns, lobbying firms, television appearances, social media and carefully placed opinion pieces. Israel has launched an influence campaign that appears intended, at least in part, to shape the information absorbed and reproduced by large-language models — also known as LLMs — such as ChatGPT as they answer questions about Gaza, the Israeli military and antisemitism, according to documents examined by Politico. The initiative offers a glimpse of what could become the next major battleground in political communications: not simply persuading people directly, but influencing the enormous digital information ecosystem from which AI systems draw their answers. At the center of the reported campaign is the Hanover Institute for Public Policy, a website carrying dozens of anonymously-authored, so-called data reports on politically sensitive subjects including Gaza and the conduct of IDF, the Israeli military. Among the questions addressed by the site are whether the IDF is “the world’s most moral army” and whether Israel is pursuing a policy of starvation in Gaza. Politico reported that French public relations company Havas Media, through subcontractor Piro Inc., appears to have established the institute as part of an Israeli-funded campaign aimed at publishing favorable, source-backed material about the country.

Eyes Everywhere: Surveillance in the United States and Palestine

Spheres Of Influence

For Palestinians, a mass level of surveillance that would shock many Americans is a daily occurrence. The Israel Occupation Force conducts regular raids and searches of Palestinian homes, often in the middle of the night. Israel also controls the information and communications infrastructure within Palestine as part of its occupation. This gives Israel near-total control over how and when Palestinians can communicate, share, and access information. The social media accounts of Palestinians are monitored, and they’re frequently arrested for posts about resisting Israeli occupation. Israel has been building up digital surveillance systems to monitor Palestinians’ every movement since the early 2000s. It spent tens of millions on CCTV cameras in the mid 2010s. It has since integrated AI technology like facial recognition scans at military checkpoints, which Palestinians must cross in order to access necessities. 

New Digital Archive Honors Gaza Journalists Killed by Israel

Hyperallergic

The project developed by the Writers Against the War on Gaza serves as a digital memorial for the around 240 Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 2023. “Anas was one of the journalists who ran into the line of fire,” reads a translated eulogy by independent journalist Doaa Shaheen about her late colleague, prominent Al Jazeera reporter Anas al-Sharif, 28, who was killed alongside four other journalists on August 10, 2025, by a targeted Israeli strike on their media tent near al-Shifa Hospital. “He covered events as they unfolded because he believed the Palestinian narrative was worth this effort and exhaustion,” Shaheen’s voice note continued. “Our stories are worth all this suffering. They deserve our presence on the front lines, documenting the truth.” Shaheen’s oral eulogy is one of several devoted to al-Sharif on a new digital memorial for Gaza’s martyred journalists. Developed and launched by the Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG) yesterday, August 12, “The Living Record” is an oral archive for remembering and recognizing the small but extraordinarily endangered community of Palestinian reporters, especially as the number of Gaza press fatalities by Israel since October 2023 hovers at around 240. The Living Record launched with individual memorial pages for 24 slain journalists. Profiles and eulogies for another 21 journalists will be added throughout the fall, and the archive will continue to grow in acknowledgment of the historically high yield of targeted press fatalities during the Gaza genocide.