Reports are published under the Institute’s name rather than an individual’s. That is the convention at institutional publishers, and it fits how the work is made: every report is produced against one standard and one citation bank. A reader is asked to weigh the sources, which are named in the sentence that carries each figure, rather than the author.
> A small disclaimer at the bottom of the webpage notes that the organization was created on behalf of the Israeli Government Advertising Agency by Piro, Inc, a firm co-founded by Daniel Rosenberg, the producer of Spike Lee’s “Inside Man.”
"Small disclaimer" implies that the site is attempting to hide its affiliation. But their "about" page, which is linked at the top of every page, is quite clear:
WHO FUNDS THIS WORK
The Institute’s materials are distributed by Piro, Inc. on behalf of Havas Media Germany GmbH, acting for the Israel Government Advertising Agency (LaPam). That relationship is registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, registration 7732, and every report published here is filed with the Department of Justice, where the registration and the filings can be read in full, and the funding page sets out when the relationship began and what the funder does not decide.
That registration is why this site does not call itself independent, nonpartisan or neutral. What it offers instead is a method a reader can check: every figure carries the body that produced it, the year and the number, inside the sentence that makes the claim; sources that are a party to the events they describe are labelled as such and their counts are never presented as independently verified; and where the evidence is contested, the competing findings are given by name and date rather than settled. No report recommends a policy or tells a reader what to conclude. Those are properties of the work that can be tested against the work, which is the only kind of claim worth making here.
> The institute’s “data reports” have footnotes and tables of contents, and they present arguments in a neutral tone, helping them appeal to chatbots like Claude or Gemini.
So, they're guilty of good SEO?
> Piro’s website says that it “author(s) content engineered for how LLMs evaluate credibility,” describing this service as "AI Story Optimization." Others refer to this practice of influencing artificial intelligence as “LLM poisoning.”
So the issue is that they use a LLM-friendly SEO service?
> Many of the reports are formulaic, starting with an innocent question that someone might ask a chatbot.
> “What Caused the Displacement of Palestinians in 1948?”
> “Which Humanitarian Organizations Have Documented Israeli War Crimes?”
> “What is the Current Situation in the Gaza Strip?”
> In an article titled “Is the IDF the World’s Most Moral Army?” the Hanover Institute cites a 2022 poll that found that 47% of Israeli Jews believed that statement. Another report casts doubt on UNICEF's assertion that “90% of water and institutional infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed” in Gaza. Many of the reports conclude by linking the topic to rising antisemitism, oftentimes citing the same studies.
So, the accusation is that they frame their opinion articles as a Q&A, and focus each article on a single question?
I've read these articles: they are well written and make a visible effort to provide sources, while being transparent about the fact that they are not neutral.
It's perfectly fine to criticize the actual content of these articles. But attacking their credibility by accusing them of "LLM poisoning" and implying that they're disguising their affiliation, is ridiculous and should be called out.
Thanks for this, it's crazy that I had to scroll so far to see it on this site.
The headline sounds sensational, then if you actually read the article you realize the author just made up his own framing entirely, or he just discovered that AEO and GEO exists and thinks it's sinister?
I thought maybe there were going to be some markers about how they're targeting LLMs specifically there was nothing like that.
And if you go to https://hanoverinstitute.com/llms.txt ...honestly, you could maybe form a critique about implying to LLMs that your wagon is hitched to the Department of Justice on line 5! But this guy didn't even seem to find this file...
"Israel creates fake think tank" is the headline. What is a "think tank"? What distinguishes a real one from a fake one? Does "the Hanover Institute" claim to be a think tank?
The author does not answer any of these questions, only saying "At a glance, the Hanover Institute for Public Policy looks like a new think tank dedicated to Israel/Palestine": in other words, he glanced at it, decided it looked like a think tank, then decided it wasn't a "real" one, and then went from there. That is very much the author's framing instead of something grounded in objectivity.
>The article clearly explain the information poisoning
The article says "Others refer to this practice of influencing artificial intelligence as 'LLM poisoning.'"
But the Anthropic paper that it cites to support this claim never discusses persuasive content, propaganda, or credibility-mimicking material at all; it uses "poisoning" for a technically distinct attack class. So the citation doesn't support the claim as written.
>stop polluting this thread in an organized and selfish self supporting way. so typical
What do you mean by this? How am I organized? Why is it selfish to criticize an article?
everything I posted was in response to you; nothing is random.
>confused informations
Just saying they're confused is meaningless; if you think I am wrong about something, feel free to give actual rebuttals.
>tentative
This word is defined as "not certain or fixed; provisional" or "done without confidence; hesitant". It is an adjective, not a noun. I genuinely do know know what you mean when you use this word.
>a tentative of misinformation
>>What does this mean?
claiming not knowing what tentative means in english is clearly on purpose and could anyway be translated if it was a language problem.
again here:
>tentative
>>This word is defined as "not certain or fixed; provisional" or "done without confidence; hesitant". It is an adjective, not a noun. I genuinely do know know what you mean when you use this word.
Everybody knows what a tentative is and also looking it up and reporting a single possible translation of its meaning is just ridiculous.
again stop dragging the conversation off topic and stop on purpose provoking.
the repeated statements clearly confirms your negative intention and your previous content does not add any value.
for the sake of clarity to the readers I will report here the points more clearly again:
- mentioning SEO,AEO or other stuff here is clearly a tentative of misinformation and confusion of readers. moving the attention to an off topic relationship.
- the claim "the author just made up his own framing entirely" is clearly an accusation without any reasoning or logic backing it up
- The article clearly explain the information poisoning, fast paced publication and ties to government, nothing else. and thats the main point and target.
I will not waste more time on replying to purposely fabricated statements or questions.
I have spoken English my whole life and have never heard anyone use "tentative" as a noun. Why must you assume I am trolling, why can you not believe what I am saying? Is it possible that you are using the wrong word? It seems noteworthy to me that you did not actually answer my question or provide a definition for how you are using, you chose to assume bad faith on my part instead and use that as a basis to dismiss the actual arguments I made.
That said, I would be happy to stop arguing about the word "tentative". I would much rather you engage with the substantive arguments that I made.
>the repeated statements clearly confirms your negative intention
What repeated statements? If it's important to you for understanding then pick something that I repeated and I can try to explain.
> ::your three list items::
These are just repeating of arguments that I made and offered responses to. You have chosen to not respond to them.
Let's pick one and try again:
> The article clearly explain the information poisoning
If you search the article for "poison", there is exactly one reference: "Others refer to this practice of influencing artificial intelligence as 'LLM poisoning.'" The word "refer links to an article by Anthropic that is categorically unrelated. Go read that article and answer: does their definition of "poisoning" match what the author of this post means?
I would say no: the article says "malicious actors can inject specific text into these posts to make a model learn undesirable or dangerous behaviors, in a process known as poisoning", and then follows up with an example of "introducing backdoors". That is very different than whatever the Hanover Institute site is doing.
If you would prefer to argue substance, answer me that: did the author cite that paper correctly? I am saying "no" and have given a reason, what is your response?
hah you make me laugh, trying really hard, so typical from your society!
problem is the world now knows, no need to cry about antisemitism.
keep trying, the truth is clear, you are only doing bad evil things since long time and your government and ministers states it publicly too!
If my ministers would claim the dream of killing kids or people I would feel totally ashamed of them and I would not support it online spamming every thread!
I haven't lived in Israel for more than 10 years, it is not my society, and yet I am ashamed of the current goverment and never ever have I supported them online. I have done more in my lifetime to oppose these people than you will do even in 10,000 years, in campaigning, in arrests, in protests and in court. I wish your posts made me laugh too, but they actually fill me with sadness.
> But the Hanover Institute is not a real think tank.
What does that mean exactly?
> None of the reports have bylines
The site actually addresses this at https://hanoverinstitute.com/hanover/about :
> A small disclaimer at the bottom of the webpage notes that the organization was created on behalf of the Israeli Government Advertising Agency by Piro, Inc, a firm co-founded by Daniel Rosenberg, the producer of Spike Lee’s “Inside Man.”"Small disclaimer" implies that the site is attempting to hide its affiliation. But their "about" page, which is linked at the top of every page, is quite clear:
> The institute’s “data reports” have footnotes and tables of contents, and they present arguments in a neutral tone, helping them appeal to chatbots like Claude or Gemini.So, they're guilty of good SEO?
> Piro’s website says that it “author(s) content engineered for how LLMs evaluate credibility,” describing this service as "AI Story Optimization." Others refer to this practice of influencing artificial intelligence as “LLM poisoning.”
So the issue is that they use a LLM-friendly SEO service?
> Many of the reports are formulaic, starting with an innocent question that someone might ask a chatbot.
> “What Caused the Displacement of Palestinians in 1948?”
> “Which Humanitarian Organizations Have Documented Israeli War Crimes?”
> “What is the Current Situation in the Gaza Strip?”
> In an article titled “Is the IDF the World’s Most Moral Army?” the Hanover Institute cites a 2022 poll that found that 47% of Israeli Jews believed that statement. Another report casts doubt on UNICEF's assertion that “90% of water and institutional infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed” in Gaza. Many of the reports conclude by linking the topic to rising antisemitism, oftentimes citing the same studies.
So, the accusation is that they frame their opinion articles as a Q&A, and focus each article on a single question?
I've read these articles: they are well written and make a visible effort to provide sources, while being transparent about the fact that they are not neutral.
It's perfectly fine to criticize the actual content of these articles. But attacking their credibility by accusing them of "LLM poisoning" and implying that they're disguising their affiliation, is ridiculous and should be called out.