Israeli influence operation highlights global disinformation industry

Researchers and platforms identified a coordinated influence campaign allegedly commissioned by Israel’s Ministry of Diaspora Affairs and executed by the firm STOIC, leveraging AI-generated personas, sockpuppet accounts, and proxy infrastructure across Facebook, X, Instagram, and YouTube to push pro-Israel narratives and anti-Muslim content in the U.S. and Canada; Meta and OpenAI linked the network to STOIC, removed many accounts for coordinated inauthentic behavior, and noted the operation’s attempts to exploit existing political tensions and target solidarity movements and media figures.