As a New Yorker this doesn’t shock me too much. The level of “Mamdani is an anti-Semite” sentiment I saw online (Reddit particularly) felt truly hysterical. And wasn’t matched by any equivalent in the offline world.
That's unfortunate. Choosing a leader who lies constantly and boasts of enjoying killing people seems like an unnecessary mistake. He is attacked by people who have defended far worse and are quite cynical. That doesn't mean he should be defended. He should be attacked by a left comfortable enough in its future vision as to not compromise on basic principles.
The attacks against Mamdani were disingenuous. This suspicion has heightened when the other candidates being artificially propped up had such huge flaws. I hope we can learn to see when that dynamic pops up in other places.
As a newyorker who was raised a modern orthdox jew, but left that world for the world arts, the last few years have been weird.
On the one hand, it's been the first time I've no longer been able to take for granted that everyone in a room agrees with my political views and doesn't pre-judge me based on my background. On the other hand, I've gone back home to the suburbs and heard some really ridiculous hyperbole about what it's like in NYC.
Then there's the fact that while I support Isreal, I don't support all its actions. Nor do a lot of people in the [Orthodox] Jewish community, but they are afraid to speakup too much.
Modern orthdoox jews are kind of like Mitt Romney is for Mormons. Observant of all the rules, but also raised with a full secular education, encouraged to go to college, and expected to participate in society rather than isolate in thier community.
I like and have come to, on certain policies and candidates, ally with Mamdani. But I’m struggling to find the relevance to New York City in this article beyond supposition. I went in ready to find a foreign attack on our homeland and come away grasping at straws.
French foreign services said they discovered this, but they haven't made all material they know public. They say the contacted the NY/US authorities with what they know.
The NY Times coverage of him is abhorrently biased. Every time I see an article about him, the headline, summary, and article itself feel like the editors were desperate to paint him in as negative a light as possible.
The man has almost overnight gotten the city to start doing things that benefit the general public, nto just the wealthy. Actions on bike lane projects that were stalled and actually taking action against slumlords.
All that barely gets a mention, but they seem obsessed with trying to find fault with everything he does.
During the NBA finals, he paid for his own ticket but they still took him to task for its expense ($1000) and the ticket coming from the "VIP ticket pool" like this was some abuse of his position or unethical of him.
Of course the mayor gets access to the VIP pool of tickets? And he didn't abuse the privilege to get tickets for anyone else - not staff, not family, not friends. Just him.
They are racist, and unfortunately hard core israel supporter, which makes anybody that doesn't go with that agenda as a target.
The moment that Mandani said he will stay home and serve the people of NYC, what asked 'where are you going to make your first visit when elected' it made him a target. He showed he wasn't willing to bow down to a foreign power.
NYT still tries to put a veneer of modicum. NY Post is the one that is unbashingly always negative against Mamdani, full on attacks all the time.
I think people had enough of it, and saw through it and voted for him just in spite.
I know all the members of my soccer team voted for him. I had no clue who he was, but all the attacks backfired and made him even more famous.
Did they categorize anti-Israel and pro-Palestine protests as antisemitic hate crimes like the universities did when they reported similar numbers? Do you agree with that categorization?
I’m glad to see antisemitism doesn’t have the sting it used to have. It’s been a shield to hide behind while doing the most abhorrent things. The world is waking up.
I confused BlackCore with Black Cube, a different Israeli private oppo research and dirty tricks group of former intelligence agents. They gained attention for their dirty campaigns against Harvey Weinstein's accusers, NSOs critics and Hungarian opposition.
"Lecornu said the French government had asked Israel for explanations of BlackCore's actions, and also for help in trying to find out who may have been behind the smear campaign."
Here in Scotland it seems the desinfo campaign targeted mostly the SNP and Swinney. I guess it's hard to know how effective it was but his party lost 6 seats in last month's elections.
At least the French demonstrated they hold other governments accountable. Israel is shrugging off the killing of some 70k civilians, for sure they will shrug off this one too, to no one's surprise (including the French government).
Rogue states will attack Western democracy. It's a tale as old as... Well, actually, in the past few years, this one has done more on that front than all the others combined.
As of September 2025, the State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 157 of the 193 member states of the United Nations (UN), or just over 81% of all UN members.
A Dutch commentator said something incredibly profound that stuck with me: Israel is a Middle Eastern country instead of an outpost of European civilization.
I'm surprised that they dare to target NYC. I think NSO Group restricted Pegasus so that no US adversary would be retained as a client and the US would not be targeted.
The current US administration would have likely been in favor of it. Long term it’s a bad idea but it wouldn’t be the first time we saw groups like this only thinking about the short term.
Another entry in the 'Black' villain line, along with BlackStone, BlackRock, BlackWater etc ... really makes you think the world is run by a thinly veiled cult of evil comic style villains.
Quite revealing when this comment has been getting downvoted. I guess some people support the fact that some people dishonestly raise money for a humanitarian cause and then steal that money.
Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying and malware, seemingly because a large portion of the Israeli population gain a certain expertise in these fields as part of serving in the IDF and working to suppress Palestinians, I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace.
If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal, firms like BlackCore is unfortunately what Israel is becoming known for around the world.
Regardless of what good things other Israeli companies might be doing, it's clear that the Israeli government doesn't have a problem with these malware / spyware companies.
Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political as I can since I on one hand disagree strongly with the government and on the other my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot (and likely downvotes but who cares I've been here 10 years and have more fake points than is important anyway).
Israel has several "cores" of technology. The military stuff is shameful (as well as other stuff). It's not just the NSOs (or less infamously the Wiz's/Palo Altos etc).
There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space. I'll spare you the long list of stuff like Mellanox that drives Nvidias in data centers and leave the googling of medtech to you. Lots of neutral stuff too.
> my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot
I appreciate your experience. I have no doubt there's indeed been an increase in such comments. I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two.
> There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space.
That's good to know, as I said in another comment, it may be time for those startups to make themselves heard more, not because they have to, but because it is in their interest if they have any expansion plans going forward, given what a poor PR the Israeli state and firms like NSO, BlackCore etc. give the Israeli tech scene.
I never understood this: the Palestinian children whose family and limbs are torn from them for Israeli sport are also Semites. It seems like the ultimate erasure to claim "antisemitic" for only Jews.
Personally, I think you're going through a hard time. An individual and a country are different, but people do rely to some extent on the image of a country when judging an individual. I agree with your logic, so I'll give you an upvote
> Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political
We are more than two years into full-on genocide and you hesitate to be political? This position reminds me of many Russians who prefer to "stay out of politics" because there are "two sides" to the conflict and it's an uncomfortable topic for them.
I didn't downvote you. You're Jewish (I stand side by side with Jewish brothers and sisters against Israel), you've expressed disagreements with the Israeli government. We're likely on a similar page then.
However:
> There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space.
Besides the point. I truly won't touch anything from that Apartheid, gen0cideal state.
c.f. the boycott of South Africa during Apartheid. Same principle.
No one has ever called me a kike or Christ killer. No one has ever accused me of controlling the media or banks. No one has spray painted a swastika on my house, or my synagogue for that matter.
My nation, the most powerful in the world, puts a menorah in its halls of government every year for Hanukkah. The legislative and judicial branches have Jewish members at the very top level. The head of government has a Jewish son-in-law.
Even online, I see much more pervasive criticism of my nation than yours.
Yet, listen to Zionists and I’m practically living in Weimar Germany. That dog won’t hunt.
People have criticisms of Israel. They may be fair or unfair. Address them on the merits and leave the rest of us out it. It has nothing to do with Jews qua Jews.
IDF conscripts astroturf on social media all day, and a lot of people do the same for free on behalf of the concept of Israel
Don’t worry about the deflections and karma flagging censorship as consensus, because its not
Jewish and Jewish Israeli people are raised to be afraid of the entire world, and think losing a perception game will result in their eradication perpetuated by everyone around them. This is due to a 1,000 year history of exactly that, so I can empathize, but not at the expense of fiction. I don’t want anyone to hurt them. I want the corrosive traits in their culture to be checked and go away.
Put all those PhD’s that some people are so proud of into other pursuits.
> Jewish and Jewish Israeli people are raised to be afraid of the entire world [...] This is due to a 1,000 year history of exactly that
Actually it goes way further. It seems that a large part of Jewish religion and culture is centered on the idea of being persecuted. A quick list goes from the Egyptian slavery, to the attack by the Amalekites, to the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple, to Haman's plot to exterminate Jews in Persia... and we're still at the book of Esther, 5th century BCE. The list goes on and on. Each of these is commemorated in a religious or civil ceremony: Passover, Purim, Hanukkah, etc.
This is to say, Judaism is built around grievance. And grievance in turn, if kept unchecked, is dangerous because it can justify unethical behaviours that are seen as reparatory.
> ... because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace.
> If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal ...
Perhaps, but - talk to someone who's done PR work for startups. Ask them what it would take for an Israeli startup working on, say, home bagel-making machines to get the sort of world-wide media attention that any Israeli creep-tech firm can get - for free - by association with a few nefarious deeds.
Selling spyware and 0days is a significant industry in Israel [1]. This includes Pegasus [2][3]. Countries around the world pay Israeli companies to hack the phones of politicians, opposition leaders, union leaders, journalists and basically anyone they don't like. This is actually a common structure for intelligence agencies who are often restricted from spying domestically or on citizens. They simply farm that out to the intelligence agencies of other countries or these spyware companies. Israel has become kind of an extrajudicial cheat code. Saudi Arabia has been a big user [4]. All of this is just objective fact.
No one was officially blamed for Stuxnet years ago but it's widely believed that the US and Israel were responsible [5]. And of course we had the pager operation [6]. If anyone else had done the same, they'd be labelled as terrorists and be under economic and diplomatic sanctions.
As for BlackCore, I guess it's part of the wider story of Israel's extensive influence campaign on foreign elections and politicians. We've seen this get really overt. For example, Thomas Massie's primary was the most expensive in history when AIPAC and AIPAC affiliates spent a combined ~$35M. I actually think it's this extreme and overt because Israel has lost the PR fight and are increasingly desperate.
Another less-talked about example was the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, which was essentiallya Zionist takeover of the Labor Party and, lo and behold, a few years later we're locking up grandmothers indefinitely for holding up signs that say "Palestine Action" [7].
And of course we have the Jeffrey Epstein of it all where it's really obvious that Epstein was an Israeli access agent and likely Ghislaine Maxwell was as well, particularly when you look at the entire history of Robert Maxwell from WW2 to arming Jewish militias pre-1948 and the IDF after that until finally "falling off" his own yacht.
Oh and there are claims that some unidentified hacker breached the FBI's systems in 2023 and accessed files related to Jeffrey Epstein. There are claims that 500TB was destroyed and 400TB of that was recovered [8]. That's so weird.
It's depressing to me how many people support a state that is functionally the Nazi Germany of our times. Like go ahead and find me the functional distinction between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But also how impervious Western politicians are to public opinion on this issue, which has drastically switched in the last few years. Opposition movements are suppressed with brutal violence.
This is just cringe conspiracy stuff. Selling CNE tooling is a business (I don't know how big you want to call it) all over the world. Israel is not a global headquarters for it.
They also committed genocide as well. Surprising that even after Israeli human rights organizations acknowledge it, it still remains stuck in the mind of capitalists to support profit at any cost.
Russians do not do that. It is contrary to our culture.
There was a lord (knyaz) in old times who even warned enemies that he is going to attack them. Of course it is not as advantageous as a covert approach. But it is very Russian.
When you hear otherwise it is those other entities targeting you, that's all.
Remilk is an Israeli food-tech startup using yeasts to produce milk proteins. Frankly I find your comment rather odd, why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state. We have innovative index on which Israel does well and large number of unicorn per capita.
> why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state.
I agree with you that it is the job of the state to do diplomacy, I would argue that the Israeli state has done an extremely poor job at that, so it may be left to some of its greener industry to pick up the slack, unfortunately.
Not because they 'have to' but because they would want to if they want to expand abroad and not get overshadowed by the bad PR the Israeli state is so good at putting out.
I disagree with you that 'other people are biased'.
One of the reasons Israeli soft power is so weak at the moment is precisely because its diplomats always insist everyone is just simply biased against Israel, often invoking some thousands year old hatred of its people etc. rather than for one second introspecting on the fact that the actions of the state may indeed have something to do with that perceived bias.
It should indeed be the job of Israeli diplomats to work and promote Israel in the best light possible
In addition to this malware, which comes from an Israeli company and is used for the purpose of subverting democratic elections in foreign countries (we don't really know who mandated these interventions, but the target, John Swinney and fellow ministers, have been vocal in their criticism of the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and have imposed a form of sanctions on the Israel Defense Forces by withholding state grants to arms firms that supply the IDF and freezing support for exports to Israel), they have also infiltrated some countries like the UK and US with very powerful pro-Israel lobbies acting behind the curtain by directly contacting prominent politicians.
In the UK, the Israeli company Elbit Systems produces arms for Israel through its British subsidiary, which holds major Ministry of Defence contracts including the Watchkeeper drone programme (worth over £800 million) and the Jupiter training system (around £130 million) – sources: UK Companies House and MoD contract notices. People protesting for Palestinians at Elbit sites have been arrested: between 2020 and June 2024, over 140 arrests were made at more than 50 actions by Palestine Action, but police and court records show that no terrorism charges were filed, and the High Court rejected a legal challenge against policing of these protests in May 2024. Two main lobbies cover both major parties in the UK: Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel.
In the US, a similar two‑party structure exists but with far greater financial power. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its super PAC spent over $4.5 million in the 2023–2024 election cycle, mostly to defeat progressive Democrats critical of Israel, including successfully spending $14.5 million to unseat Congressman Jamaal Bowman (source: Federal Election Commission filings). The Democratic Majority for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition mirror the UK's Labour and Conservative lobby groups, while the US provides Israel with roughly $3.8 billion in annual military aid – a sharp contrast to the UK's limited sanctions on the IDF. Unlike the UK, no US protester has been arrested under terrorism laws for actions against arms companies supplying Israel.
In practice, Israel and Russia do similar things:
they affect or subvert foreign elections by manipulating information and social media, and they directly influence politics via foundations, think tanks, and by cultivating politicians and influencers. For Russia, this includes organisations like the Russian House in Washington and sympathetic think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation – though the Heritage Foundation is American, Russian state media and proxies have actively courted its positions.
Russia has also influenced figures like Tucker Carlson, who repeatedly echoes Kremlin talking points, and JD Vance, who has opposed military aid to Ukraine; no public evidence proves formal recruitment, but both have amplified narratives favourable to Moscow and JD Vance made a powerful endorsement of Orban, a corrupted pro-russian statesman, in the past election in Hungary.
There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran.
Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians. The Palestinian bias only exists in circles where every thought regarding Israel is immediately evoking a Palestinian connotation. In reality, most Israelis never interact with Palestinians.
To suggest that a sector of Israeli startups exists on the experience of people "suppressing Palestinians" is definitely biased, absurd, and is a slippery slope.
> There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran.
Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians.
I would suggest to you that the focus on Iran is because Iran is perceived as being an obstacle to Israeli hegemony in the region and thus undisputed Israeli rule over Palestinian territory.
Iran also justifies its actions in terms of standing up for Palestinians.
If our press was honest, every story you heard about Russia would have been about Israel instead. Israel is overwhelmingly America's worst enemy and they distract from that by pretending Russia/Iran/China/Qatar is. No other country blackmails our politicians or steals so much of our money, military resources, soldier lives as much as Israel. There's no close competitor even.
Yet we're never told that explicitly and it's never framed as the abusive relationship that it is.
Anti-Zionism is not equivalent to antisemitism, this deceitful rhetorical trick needs to stop if you actually care about Jews. There are many Jews that oppose Zionism, and many Zionists who are not Jews
israel also has a substantial population of russians in the form of russian jews, so if israel is following russian disinformation tactics, it probably wouldnt be hard to trace their roots
'islamo supremacists', but not jewish supremacists? The ones just spontaneously moved into a land where people already lived 75 years ago aren't responsible?
Literally DARVO.
is a reaction that perpetrators of wrongdoing, such as abusers, narcissists, or sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. Research indicates that it is a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers.
* Avisa Partners / iStrat, a French lobbying, intelligence, cybersecurity, and online-influence firm, has been accused in French investigations of information manipulation through ghostwritten articles, fake or undisclosed profiles, blogs, and Wikipedia interventions on behalf of powerful clients. Mediapart reported that Avisa was suspected of modifying Wikipedia pages for clients including French business elites and foreign powers. Wikimedia France also summarized the affair, saying Avisa or its subcontractors were suspected of numerous undeclared paid contributions to Wikipedia. Avisa has denied wrongdoing.
[1] [2] [3]
* iStrat, Avisa's predecessor, was separately linked in French reporting to fake online personas used to publish commentary about business disputes. The Avisa Partners Wikipedia summary, based on French media reports, says JDN traced fake analyst profiles and critical commentary to iStrat-era activity, while iStrat and its owners denied the claims.
[4]
* There was also a France-linked, though not company-linked, covert influence operation in Africa. In December 2020, Facebook/Meta removed networks for coordinated inauthentic behavior targeting African audiences; one network was linked to individuals associated with the French military. Meta said the operation used fake accounts, pages posing as news or military entities, and off-platform domains. Graphika and Stanford described it as French and Russian influence operations going head-to-head in Africa.
[5] [6]
* The Washington Post reported the same Facebook takedown as people affiliated with the French military using fake Facebook accounts to meddle in African politics, while noting that Facebook said it did not have evidence that the French military institution itself directed the activity.
[7]
* CLS Strategies, a Washington, D.C. communications firm, was named by Facebook/Meta in 2020 when Meta removed fake accounts and pages tied to operations in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Mexico. Meta defines coordinated inauthentic behavior as efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal where fake accounts are central. PRWeek also reported the takedown as fake accounts and pages managed by CLS.
[1] [2]
* Rally Forge, a U.S. marketing firm, was linked by Facebook to a 2020 domestic U.S. operation run on behalf of Turning Point USA, involving fake accounts and coordinated behavior. Axios reported that Facebook removed 200 accounts, 55 pages, and 76 Instagram accounts.
[3] [4]
* New Knowledge / Project Birmingham is another ugly example. In the 2017 Alabama Senate race, Democratic-aligned operatives experimented with Russian-style disinformation tactics, including fake or misleading Facebook activity and buying retweets. The effort was reportedly small and probably did not decide the election, but it proves the category exists inside the U.S. political ecosystem.
[5] [6]
* There are also U.S.-linked pro-Western covert influence operations. Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory analyzed accounts removed by Twitter and Meta for platform manipulation or coordinated inauthentic behavior; later reporting said the Pentagon ordered a review after fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military were taken down. Meta later attributed a campaign targeting the Middle East and Central Asia to people associated with the U.S. military.
[7] [8] [9]
* Cambridge Analytica is adjacent but not identical. It had U.S. offices and U.S. political clients, and it was part of the broader “election manipulation for hire” world, but its central scandal was data harvesting, psychographic targeting, and political ad targeting, not necessarily fake-account bot networks in the same narrow sense.
[10]
It's disturbing to think that there are people getting paid huge amounts of money by governments, using taxpayer money to f around with politics of other countries... Meanwhile I've been trying to raise a $100K seed round for my startup which I've been working on for 14 years during nights and weekends... and I never even made it the interview phase of a tech incubator. WTF is wrong with people?
I predict that this will be flagged very soon. I would love for HN to publish some data on likes/flags, even anonymous IDs with some infos like account age and number of posts. Sure someome will argue things here get flagged cause they are political, but I don't buy that.
We've had discussions about this sort of stuff before.
As an Israeli (note the article exposing them is Israeli too) I was not aware until I saw this and I definitely intend to protest/organize about this (though to be fair I've been protesting about other stuff in the past and the climate here sucks).
> Are you saying that this isn't political? It's literally about politics.
Sure it's about politics, but it's also about tech. The intersection of politics and tech is a fascinating area, of great interest to many folks on HN, and probably within HN's charter.
I think that merely touching on politics should not be grounds for flagging a submission, even when the specifics are highly controversial (as in this case).
I do not disagree that there is a political aspect to this article. Todays news on Fable and Mythos are political too. HN has plenty of political articles, yet some are more flagged than others.
I claim there might be a pattern of supression. Are arguing against my main point that it would be good to have more transparency so I can support or refute my claim?
The main use case the governments around the world have for the investment in LLMs is being able to attack other countries and their own citizens with these kinds of campaigns.
They worked to influence elective when they were barely researched, had little evidence, and were done by small teams who can barely speak the language. To dismiss these kinds of campaigns come across as either ignorant of the past 15 years or a disingenuous dismissal.
Yeah it's an interesting article because on the one hand, PR firm doing PR and that doesn't seem very newsworthy. On the other hand, there is an extremely good case that the firms doing PR in French elections should be French PR firms and responsive to French law enforcement. Ditto Scotland and New York. I can't find an angle where it looks like a good idea to tolerate well organised and financed foreign guns for hire getting involved in a local election.
Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide. It doesn't tell us much about why they might be targeted for a smear campaign.
> Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide. It doesn't tell us much about why they might be targeted for a smear campaign.
The question if there is a genocide isn't settled, either. There are credible arguments for both viewpoints when it comes to the current iteration of the Palestine conflict.
> Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide
Uh? The US government and many of the EU governments (i.e. "the West", the world's most powerful economic, diplomatic and military bloc) are either fine with Israel doing whatever it wants or too scared to speak up. All are, in fact, supporting Israel with money and weapons, and it's in Israel's supreme interest to keep the money and the support flowing by damaging any movement and politician that declares to be "pro-Palestine".
That said, I also don't like the (widely used) 'pro-Palestine' label, which implies some kind of partisanship. You don't call the anti-apartheid people "the pro-Blacks".
It's only a while until social media could be turned off before elections if not outright banned. It only free speech for AI bots and psyops campagins. Actual voices get drowned in a sea of slop and propaganda.
I am an Israeli and though I dislike this certain brand of companies and would never work in one, I am not sure this is strictly bad.
I assume these were hired by a local candidate (unless someone can think who has a deep interest in French municipal elections)
Currently the only actors who use fake social accounts for election manipulation are the Russians, Chinese, Iran and Qatar.
The west is completely powerless in either fighting back, regulating social networks or coming up with a technological solution.
As democracies are being undermined by foreign influence, from Brexit, to the US elections, I'd rather local parties would have access to these tools than the alternative, and that would be only done using private companies.
Of course the better alternative is getting rid of fake accounts and making social media into a unicorn and bunnies hate-free zone, don't think we are headed there though
> unless someone can think who has a deep interest in French municipal elections
The State of Israel? They are paranoid about their international standing. (Really, just paranoid in general, to an absurd and pathological degree, though for understandable reasons.)
Ignoring the actual situation as I don't care to go into that right now, just talking about the mechanisms working with here. I did have access accidentally to buy cheap social stuff. Not that it would be hard to run it myself, just wouldn't be worth the effort to make it run well for controllably long time.
But anyway, i didn't do anything with it, but i always thought, how do easy it would be for a competent, young, informed government, to realize counteracting the digital influence of foreignn governments is much more important than whatever else they prioritise. Exaggerated, maybe, but it should be at least top 3 or whatever exact position in ones priority list. Because especially: it's so easy, to spend a few thousand euros to hire some really competent people who might just pay some shady social account broker, now even with the use LLMs , much more scalably & effectively, to counteract and do even better stuff than what they do.
But then, remembering bernays, i am happy they are incompetent. The day they reach competency with the toolset that is yet in infancy, i will regret not having tried to control who is running this. On the other hand, you just can't risk doing this. It will lose your control eventually. And without being a conspiracy theorists, it won't be long until more pips (people in power) will notice the ease of influence- and propaganda (in bernays understanding, the one who rebranded it as public relations), through these tools.
Luckily, i've never been in a knife fight. Though i've heard, that with an unskilled fighter, you have pretty bad chances of not getting hurt. But a skilled one is a death sentence.
Of course i don't want to be attacked by a knife. And i don't want to take some other unskilled street gangster and train him. Of course, some people get humbled if introduced to power. But many corrupt. And those hungry for power, are rarely those, who should have it. This could be an hour long discussion. But just look around the people you know well. Maybe yourself in certain situations or relationships. Every humans has the potential.
Is the USA finally doing something about foreign lobbyists here? Trump is like the ultimate tool here for foreigners to gain influence, no matter the country. Yuri explained this already in the 1980s (!!!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9apDnRRSOCk (it's the KGB view, so biased too, of course, but if you extend it, then also connect it to Epstein, you have basically undermined democracy effectively; a shame Yuri is dead, he would have had a field day with "analysing" Putin).
OP is talking about American's here. AIPAC is made of and paid for AIPAC, like other political packs or other American groups. AIPAC is just Americans, doing the American political thing.
I always thought this was a new thing until I read The Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein. Over more than 50 years Israel has developed a global export industry around military, surveillance, and security technologies that were developed and tested through its control of Palestinian territories, and that these technologies are then marketed and sold worldwide. Buyers are often bad actors that use it to kill and suppress other populations including in Armenia/Azerbaijan, Myanmar, Rwanda genocide, authoritarian governments and many other examples cited in the book.
Wow, again I am dismayed by the antizionism and anti-Israel sentiment. The popularity of this short, weak article on this website, and the vitriol and hate in the comments is unreal. Can't you all go to Reddit?
In 2016 the UK based Cambridge Analytica was blamed for Trump's win in 2016. Then he won again in 2024 without them. Meanwhile both USA parties invested heavily in social media campaigns.
In my country local government elections are in a few months and political parties are already flooding my social media with rage bait (primarily Instagram and Facebook).
This short article is about a private company, not linked to the government, that may or may not have been retained by locals, that may or may not have breached foreign interference laws, and that certainly did not lend its targeted candidates an overwhelming advantage (Mamdani was the most popular candidate in the NYC mayoral election). But because it is about Israel everyone goes crazy.
Is the "meddling" just running campaign ads? I don't really see how an election where voters' brains were hijacked by tiktok ads funded by foreign governments is less legitimate than one where voters' brains were hijacked by tiktok ads funded by local organizations.
You don't see a difference between local and foreign organizations influencing an election?
Most countries only allow citizens to vote. By your logic, they should let anyone vote, because what's the difference between a citizen and a foreigner when it comes to elections?
As a New Yorker this doesn’t shock me too much. The level of “Mamdani is an anti-Semite” sentiment I saw online (Reddit particularly) felt truly hysterical. And wasn’t matched by any equivalent in the offline world.
They have to be kind of panicking that the smear tactics keep backfiring.
Didn't stop Mamdani. Won't stop Platner.
At this point it is amusing to see them pissing away so many millions of dollars to stop a public opinion tide that has no chance of being stopped.
I'm not sure in the Platner case why the supposed progressive cause can't find someone without a Nazi tattoo.
I'm not sure what the alleged benefits of Platner are either. Mamdani has been amazing, but what is Platner for?
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> Won't stop Platner.
That's unfortunate. Choosing a leader who lies constantly and boasts of enjoying killing people seems like an unnecessary mistake. He is attacked by people who have defended far worse and are quite cynical. That doesn't mean he should be defended. He should be attacked by a left comfortable enough in its future vision as to not compromise on basic principles.
The attacks against Mamdani were disingenuous. This suspicion has heightened when the other candidates being artificially propped up had such huge flaws. I hope we can learn to see when that dynamic pops up in other places.
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As a newyorker who was raised a modern orthdox jew, but left that world for the world arts, the last few years have been weird.
On the one hand, it's been the first time I've no longer been able to take for granted that everyone in a room agrees with my political views and doesn't pre-judge me based on my background. On the other hand, I've gone back home to the suburbs and heard some really ridiculous hyperbole about what it's like in NYC.
Then there's the fact that while I support Isreal, I don't support all its actions. Nor do a lot of people in the [Orthodox] Jewish community, but they are afraid to speakup too much.
Modern orthdoox jews are kind of like Mitt Romney is for Mormons. Observant of all the rules, but also raised with a full secular education, encouraged to go to college, and expected to participate in society rather than isolate in thier community.
I like and have come to, on certain policies and candidates, ally with Mamdani. But I’m struggling to find the relevance to New York City in this article beyond supposition. I went in ready to find a foreign attack on our homeland and come away grasping at straws.
French foreign services said they discovered this, but they haven't made all material they know public. They say the contacted the NY/US authorities with what they know.
Do you think they are lying just for kicks?
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Well previous NYC mayors felt the need to travel to Israel and talk to them about how good of a job he did for them, so it is quite a change
The NY Times coverage of him is abhorrently biased. Every time I see an article about him, the headline, summary, and article itself feel like the editors were desperate to paint him in as negative a light as possible.
The man has almost overnight gotten the city to start doing things that benefit the general public, nto just the wealthy. Actions on bike lane projects that were stalled and actually taking action against slumlords.
All that barely gets a mention, but they seem obsessed with trying to find fault with everything he does.
During the NBA finals, he paid for his own ticket but they still took him to task for its expense ($1000) and the ticket coming from the "VIP ticket pool" like this was some abuse of his position or unethical of him.
Of course the mayor gets access to the VIP pool of tickets? And he didn't abuse the privilege to get tickets for anyone else - not staff, not family, not friends. Just him.
Same with Politico and WSJ. Transparently biased against him.
They are racist, and unfortunately hard core israel supporter, which makes anybody that doesn't go with that agenda as a target.
The moment that Mandani said he will stay home and serve the people of NYC, what asked 'where are you going to make your first visit when elected' it made him a target. He showed he wasn't willing to bow down to a foreign power.
NYT still tries to put a veneer of modicum. NY Post is the one that is unbashingly always negative against Mamdani, full on attacks all the time.
I think people had enough of it, and saw through it and voted for him just in spite.
I know all the members of my soccer team voted for him. I had no clue who he was, but all the attacks backfired and made him even more famous.
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do they mention hwo they meddled? there is a scenario where such firm would expect mamdani elected as a favorable outcome.
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Did they categorize anti-Israel and pro-Palestine protests as antisemitic hate crimes like the universities did when they reported similar numbers? Do you agree with that categorization?
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I’m glad to see antisemitism doesn’t have the sting it used to have. It’s been a shield to hide behind while doing the most abhorrent things. The world is waking up.
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Is anti-semitism on the rise, or is the bar on the ground?
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Show me a single article about "antisemitism on the decline".
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I confused BlackCore with Black Cube, a different Israeli private oppo research and dirty tricks group of former intelligence agents. They gained attention for their dirty campaigns against Harvey Weinstein's accusers, NSOs critics and Hungarian opposition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cube
Not to be confused with Blackrock or Blackstone, both large American investment companies with their own shady operations.
And don’t forget Blackwater.
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Large American investment companies that were also both founded by Jewish people. I'm sure it's just a coincidence, though.
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"Lecornu said the French government had asked Israel for explanations of BlackCore's actions, and also for help in trying to find out who may have been behind the smear campaign."
This is a very well executed bit of diplomacy.
Nonsense, it'll end up with merely some public head scratching and shrugs, and a "gee whiz monsieur, it sure is a mystery to us too".
Interesting that whatever they wanted to do backfired in NYC.
Well of course, that’s the point - it gives the French government the cover to investigate while sending Israel a soft warning.
“Israel, thank you for your cooperation, my gosh, we’re really going to get to the bottom of this” = ‘We know what you’re doing, fuck off’
Here in Scotland it seems the desinfo campaign targeted mostly the SNP and Swinney. I guess it's hard to know how effective it was but his party lost 6 seats in last month's elections.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/26188090.john-swinney-ta...
At least the French demonstrated they hold other governments accountable. Israel is shrugging off the killing of some 70k civilians, for sure they will shrug off this one too, to no one's surprise (including the French government).
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The israeli ambassador in France should already have been kicked out a while ago for a myriad of reasons, I'm ashamed my country is so spineless.
Europeans couldn't even get Israel out of a silly pop song contest, so it seems a bit hopeless to expect any actual political action.
Israel literally owns that contest. By what reasoning could the EU force the owner of a silly song contest to exclude their own country?
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Rogue states will attack Western democracy. It's a tale as old as... Well, actually, in the past few years, this one has done more on that front than all the others combined.
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You do realize French did administer Lebanon? All of those things led to that hot mess of a region.
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~ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_P...
Hamas, not so much.
Which countries ?
A Dutch commentator said something incredibly profound that stuck with me: Israel is a Middle Eastern country instead of an outpost of European civilization.
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Is this the same company that Slovenia was asking the EU for help with regarding the company's meddling in the election process?
Not quite. That was Black Cube, a second Israeli spy firm accused of election meddling: https://www.politico.eu/article/robert-golob-slovenia-eu-pro...
I'm surprised that they dare to target NYC. I think NSO Group restricted Pegasus so that no US adversary would be retained as a client and the US would not be targeted.
The current US administration would have likely been in favor of it. Long term it’s a bad idea but it wouldn’t be the first time we saw groups like this only thinking about the short term.
They think they can do whatever they want. And thus far, they have been right about that.
> thus far, they have been right about that
NSO has been sued [1][2] and sanctioned [3].
[1] https://about.fb.com/news/2025/05/winning-the-fight-against-...
[2] https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/society-equity/us-cou...
[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/11/03/pegasus...
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Israel has been getting away with this for years: https://www.france24.com/en/technology/20230215-israeli-firm...
I would love to hear from someone knowledgeable - is that bad for the company or good?
Another Russiagate?
Another entry in the 'Black' villain line, along with BlackStone, BlackRock, BlackWater etc ... really makes you think the world is run by a thinly veiled cult of evil comic style villains.
Also Black Cube: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Cube
Black, like Leon Black of Epstein fame
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Religious flamewar will get you banned here. No more of this, please.
You've broken the site guidelines many times and we've asked you repeatedly to stop. I don't want to ban you, so please fix this.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
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It is called HASBARA, spreading lies with Israeli government money received from USA as aid.
… and if you’re against Israeli firms against meddling in our elections, you’re somehow accused of antisemitism
Is this protected free speech in USA?
why would the First Amendment apply to foreign nationals working for a foreign corporation in a foreign country?
Article is very light on details
The same Israeli BlackCore that masqueraded as a humanitarian fund for Gaza and stole the money?
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2026-0...
Lowest of the low.
Quite revealing when this comment has been getting downvoted. I guess some people support the fact that some people dishonestly raise money for a humanitarian cause and then steal that money.
What a surprise..
Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying and malware, seemingly because a large portion of the Israeli population gain a certain expertise in these fields as part of serving in the IDF and working to suppress Palestinians, I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace.
If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal, firms like BlackCore is unfortunately what Israel is becoming known for around the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_boomerang
Regardless of what good things other Israeli companies might be doing, it's clear that the Israeli government doesn't have a problem with these malware / spyware companies.
They actively export it. See Pegasus
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Which government are you comparing to?
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there's not much controversy that would pull media attention in green tech or medical research
Medical research is still plenty controversial: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Aftonbladet_Israel_contro...
Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political as I can since I on one hand disagree strongly with the government and on the other my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot (and likely downvotes but who cares I've been here 10 years and have more fake points than is important anyway).
Israel has several "cores" of technology. The military stuff is shameful (as well as other stuff). It's not just the NSOs (or less infamously the Wiz's/Palo Altos etc).
There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space. I'll spare you the long list of stuff like Mellanox that drives Nvidias in data centers and leave the googling of medtech to you. Lots of neutral stuff too.
> my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot
I appreciate your experience. I have no doubt there's indeed been an increase in such comments. I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two.
> There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space.
That's good to know, as I said in another comment, it may be time for those startups to make themselves heard more, not because they have to, but because it is in their interest if they have any expansion plans going forward, given what a poor PR the Israeli state and firms like NSO, BlackCore etc. give the Israeli tech scene.
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What is shameful about the "military stuff"? Isn't that's what is protecting you from your neighbors and their patron?
I never understood this: the Palestinian children whose family and limbs are torn from them for Israeli sport are also Semites. It seems like the ultimate erasure to claim "antisemitic" for only Jews.
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Personally, I think you're going through a hard time. An individual and a country are different, but people do rely to some extent on the image of a country when judging an individual. I agree with your logic, so I'll give you an upvote
> Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political
We are more than two years into full-on genocide and you hesitate to be political? This position reminds me of many Russians who prefer to "stay out of politics" because there are "two sides" to the conflict and it's an uncomfortable topic for them.
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I didn't downvote you. You're Jewish (I stand side by side with Jewish brothers and sisters against Israel), you've expressed disagreements with the Israeli government. We're likely on a similar page then.
However:
> There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space.
Besides the point. I truly won't touch anything from that Apartheid, gen0cideal state.
c.f. the boycott of South Africa during Apartheid. Same principle.
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Your PM Netanyahu is a disaster. Your religious hardliners seem to love him.
Even someone neutral to sympathetic can’t help but look on in disgust at your PM and his supporters.
Edit: The point being that it tarnishes everything that Israel does, and makes fault-finding way too easy.
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No one has ever called me a kike or Christ killer. No one has ever accused me of controlling the media or banks. No one has spray painted a swastika on my house, or my synagogue for that matter.
My nation, the most powerful in the world, puts a menorah in its halls of government every year for Hanukkah. The legislative and judicial branches have Jewish members at the very top level. The head of government has a Jewish son-in-law.
Even online, I see much more pervasive criticism of my nation than yours.
Yet, listen to Zionists and I’m practically living in Weimar Germany. That dog won’t hunt.
People have criticisms of Israel. They may be fair or unfair. Address them on the merits and leave the rest of us out it. It has nothing to do with Jews qua Jews.
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IDF conscripts astroturf on social media all day, and a lot of people do the same for free on behalf of the concept of Israel
Don’t worry about the deflections and karma flagging censorship as consensus, because its not
Jewish and Jewish Israeli people are raised to be afraid of the entire world, and think losing a perception game will result in their eradication perpetuated by everyone around them. This is due to a 1,000 year history of exactly that, so I can empathize, but not at the expense of fiction. I don’t want anyone to hurt them. I want the corrosive traits in their culture to be checked and go away.
Put all those PhD’s that some people are so proud of into other pursuits.
> Jewish and Jewish Israeli people are raised to be afraid of the entire world [...] This is due to a 1,000 year history of exactly that
Actually it goes way further. It seems that a large part of Jewish religion and culture is centered on the idea of being persecuted. A quick list goes from the Egyptian slavery, to the attack by the Amalekites, to the Babylonian destruction of the First Temple, to Haman's plot to exterminate Jews in Persia... and we're still at the book of Esther, 5th century BCE. The list goes on and on. Each of these is commemorated in a religious or civil ceremony: Passover, Purim, Hanukkah, etc.
This is to say, Judaism is built around grievance. And grievance in turn, if kept unchecked, is dangerous because it can justify unethical behaviours that are seen as reparatory.
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At this point just file it under "Tech-washing".
As if Rudolph Höss' innovations in chemical and civil engineering somehow excuse Auschwitz.
People need to start being clear about subversion and inhumanity exported from Israel and not attempt to bookkeep that against their B2B SaaS'.
This demonic rhetoric would not be valid in any other circumstance.
> ... because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace.
> If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal ...
Perhaps, but - talk to someone who's done PR work for startups. Ask them what it would take for an Israeli startup working on, say, home bagel-making machines to get the sort of world-wide media attention that any Israeli creep-tech firm can get - for free - by association with a few nefarious deeds.
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Selling spyware and 0days is a significant industry in Israel [1]. This includes Pegasus [2][3]. Countries around the world pay Israeli companies to hack the phones of politicians, opposition leaders, union leaders, journalists and basically anyone they don't like. This is actually a common structure for intelligence agencies who are often restricted from spying domestically or on citizens. They simply farm that out to the intelligence agencies of other countries or these spyware companies. Israel has become kind of an extrajudicial cheat code. Saudi Arabia has been a big user [4]. All of this is just objective fact.
No one was officially blamed for Stuxnet years ago but it's widely believed that the US and Israel were responsible [5]. And of course we had the pager operation [6]. If anyone else had done the same, they'd be labelled as terrorists and be under economic and diplomatic sanctions.
As for BlackCore, I guess it's part of the wider story of Israel's extensive influence campaign on foreign elections and politicians. We've seen this get really overt. For example, Thomas Massie's primary was the most expensive in history when AIPAC and AIPAC affiliates spent a combined ~$35M. I actually think it's this extreme and overt because Israel has lost the PR fight and are increasingly desperate.
Another less-talked about example was the character assassination of Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, which was essentiallya Zionist takeover of the Labor Party and, lo and behold, a few years later we're locking up grandmothers indefinitely for holding up signs that say "Palestine Action" [7].
And of course we have the Jeffrey Epstein of it all where it's really obvious that Epstein was an Israeli access agent and likely Ghislaine Maxwell was as well, particularly when you look at the entire history of Robert Maxwell from WW2 to arming Jewish militias pre-1948 and the IDF after that until finally "falling off" his own yacht.
Oh and there are claims that some unidentified hacker breached the FBI's systems in 2023 and accessed files related to Jeffrey Epstein. There are claims that 500TB was destroyed and 400TB of that was recovered [8]. That's so weird.
It's depressing to me how many people support a state that is functionally the Nazi Germany of our times. Like go ahead and find me the functional distinction between Gaza and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. But also how impervious Western politicians are to public opinion on this issue, which has drastically switched in the last few years. Opposition movements are suppressed with brutal violence.
[1]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47184683
This is just cringe conspiracy stuff. Selling CNE tooling is a business (I don't know how big you want to call it) all over the world. Israel is not a global headquarters for it.
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The Nazis did a ton of cutting edge research too.
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They also committed genocide as well. Surprising that even after Israeli human rights organizations acknowledge it, it still remains stuck in the mind of capitalists to support profit at any cost.
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Did they? Like, which exactly?
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Are North Korea and Russia "allies" of the US?
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Russians do not do that. It is contrary to our culture.
There was a lord (knyaz) in old times who even warned enemies that he is going to attack them. Of course it is not as advantageous as a covert approach. But it is very Russian.
When you hear otherwise it is those other entities targeting you, that's all.
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There are three options:
1. Israel is doing this in an outsized way compared to everyone else
2. Israel is extremely poor at doing it because it keeps getting caught
3. All the reporting is controlled by the antisemitic media conglomerates ruled by a shadowy council funded by Qatari money
I expect you to deny 1, 2 is an impossibility to you, 3 is the most likely I'd hear even though it's highly reminiscent of something...
Looking forward to option 4. I hope it's something more original than shouting "blood libel!".
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I think it's pretty objective. It's honestly possibly even a bit of a pro Israel framing given how passive and soft it is.
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Remilk is an Israeli food-tech startup using yeasts to produce milk proteins. Frankly I find your comment rather odd, why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state. We have innovative index on which Israel does well and large number of unicorn per capita.
> why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state.
I agree with you that it is the job of the state to do diplomacy, I would argue that the Israeli state has done an extremely poor job at that, so it may be left to some of its greener industry to pick up the slack, unfortunately.
Not because they 'have to' but because they would want to if they want to expand abroad and not get overshadowed by the bad PR the Israeli state is so good at putting out.
I disagree with you that 'other people are biased'.
One of the reasons Israeli soft power is so weak at the moment is precisely because its diplomats always insist everyone is just simply biased against Israel, often invoking some thousands year old hatred of its people etc. rather than for one second introspecting on the fact that the actions of the state may indeed have something to do with that perceived bias.
It should indeed be the job of Israeli diplomats to work and promote Israel in the best light possible
In addition to this malware, which comes from an Israeli company and is used for the purpose of subverting democratic elections in foreign countries (we don't really know who mandated these interventions, but the target, John Swinney and fellow ministers, have been vocal in their criticism of the Israeli government's actions in Gaza and the West Bank, and have imposed a form of sanctions on the Israel Defense Forces by withholding state grants to arms firms that supply the IDF and freezing support for exports to Israel), they have also infiltrated some countries like the UK and US with very powerful pro-Israel lobbies acting behind the curtain by directly contacting prominent politicians.
In the UK, the Israeli company Elbit Systems produces arms for Israel through its British subsidiary, which holds major Ministry of Defence contracts including the Watchkeeper drone programme (worth over £800 million) and the Jupiter training system (around £130 million) – sources: UK Companies House and MoD contract notices. People protesting for Palestinians at Elbit sites have been arrested: between 2020 and June 2024, over 140 arrests were made at more than 50 actions by Palestine Action, but police and court records show that no terrorism charges were filed, and the High Court rejected a legal challenge against policing of these protests in May 2024. Two main lobbies cover both major parties in the UK: Conservative Friends of Israel and Labour Friends of Israel.
In the US, a similar two‑party structure exists but with far greater financial power. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its super PAC spent over $4.5 million in the 2023–2024 election cycle, mostly to defeat progressive Democrats critical of Israel, including successfully spending $14.5 million to unseat Congressman Jamaal Bowman (source: Federal Election Commission filings). The Democratic Majority for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition mirror the UK's Labour and Conservative lobby groups, while the US provides Israel with roughly $3.8 billion in annual military aid – a sharp contrast to the UK's limited sanctions on the IDF. Unlike the UK, no US protester has been arrested under terrorism laws for actions against arms companies supplying Israel.
In practice, Israel and Russia do similar things: they affect or subvert foreign elections by manipulating information and social media, and they directly influence politics via foundations, think tanks, and by cultivating politicians and influencers. For Russia, this includes organisations like the Russian House in Washington and sympathetic think tanks such as the Heritage Foundation – though the Heritage Foundation is American, Russian state media and proxies have actively courted its positions.
Russia has also influenced figures like Tucker Carlson, who repeatedly echoes Kremlin talking points, and JD Vance, who has opposed military aid to Ukraine; no public evidence proves formal recruitment, but both have amplified narratives favourable to Moscow and JD Vance made a powerful endorsement of Orban, a corrupted pro-russian statesman, in the past election in Hungary.
There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran.
Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians. The Palestinian bias only exists in circles where every thought regarding Israel is immediately evoking a Palestinian connotation. In reality, most Israelis never interact with Palestinians.
To suggest that a sector of Israeli startups exists on the experience of people "suppressing Palestinians" is definitely biased, absurd, and is a slippery slope.
> There's a lot of offensive security talent, but this has nothing to do with Palestinians. Israeli intelligence is very advanced and is why Israel has been able to eliminate the leaders of Hezbollah and Iran. Not everything in Israel is about or related to Palestinians.
I would suggest to you that the focus on Iran is because Iran is perceived as being an obstacle to Israeli hegemony in the region and thus undisputed Israeli rule over Palestinian territory.
Iran also justifies its actions in terms of standing up for Palestinians.
So yes, it's very much related.
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Everything is israel is and always will be related to palestinians in some sense because it's being done on their land
A shocker!
If our press was honest, every story you heard about Russia would have been about Israel instead. Israel is overwhelmingly America's worst enemy and they distract from that by pretending Russia/Iran/China/Qatar is. No other country blackmails our politicians or steals so much of our money, military resources, soldier lives as much as Israel. There's no close competitor even.
Yet we're never told that explicitly and it's never framed as the abusive relationship that it is.
Makes you really wonder who the press works for.
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Anti-Zionism is not equivalent to antisemitism, this deceitful rhetorical trick needs to stop if you actually care about Jews. There are many Jews that oppose Zionism, and many Zionists who are not Jews
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russia and israel are both regional powers.
israel also has a substantial population of russians in the form of russian jews, so if israel is following russian disinformation tactics, it probably wouldnt be hard to trace their roots
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'islamo supremacists', but not jewish supremacists? The ones just spontaneously moved into a land where people already lived 75 years ago aren't responsible?
Literally DARVO.
is a reaction that perpetrators of wrongdoing, such as abusers, narcissists, or sexual offenders, may display in response to being held accountable for their behavior. Research indicates that it is a common manipulation strategy of psychological abusers.
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* Avisa Partners / iStrat, a French lobbying, intelligence, cybersecurity, and online-influence firm, has been accused in French investigations of information manipulation through ghostwritten articles, fake or undisclosed profiles, blogs, and Wikipedia interventions on behalf of powerful clients. Mediapart reported that Avisa was suspected of modifying Wikipedia pages for clients including French business elites and foreign powers. Wikimedia France also summarized the affair, saying Avisa or its subcontractors were suspected of numerous undeclared paid contributions to Wikipedia. Avisa has denied wrongdoing. [1] [2] [3]
* iStrat, Avisa's predecessor, was separately linked in French reporting to fake online personas used to publish commentary about business disputes. The Avisa Partners Wikipedia summary, based on French media reports, says JDN traced fake analyst profiles and critical commentary to iStrat-era activity, while iStrat and its owners denied the claims. [4]
* There was also a France-linked, though not company-linked, covert influence operation in Africa. In December 2020, Facebook/Meta removed networks for coordinated inauthentic behavior targeting African audiences; one network was linked to individuals associated with the French military. Meta said the operation used fake accounts, pages posing as news or military entities, and off-platform domains. Graphika and Stanford described it as French and Russian influence operations going head-to-head in Africa. [5] [6]
* The Washington Post reported the same Facebook takedown as people affiliated with the French military using fake Facebook accounts to meddle in African politics, while noting that Facebook said it did not have evidence that the French military institution itself directed the activity. [7]
[1] Operation Fake Info: firm used by French business elites suspected of infiltrating Wikipedia https://www.mediapart.fr/en/journal/france/230722/operation-...
[2] L'affaire Avisa Partners sur Wikipédia, expliquée https://www.wikimedia.fr/affaire-avisa-partners-sur-wikipedi...
[3] France: Avisa Partners withdraws its defamation actions against a number of media outlets https://europeanjournalists.org/blog/2023/06/29/france-avisa...
[4] Avisa Partners https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avisa_Partners
[5] Removing Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior from France and Russia https://about.fb.com/news/2020/12/removing-coordinated-inaut...
[6] More-Troll Kombat: French and Russian influence operations go head to head targeting audiences in Africa https://graphika.com/reports/more-troll-kombat
[7] People affiliated with French military used Facebook to meddle in Africa https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/12/15/people-...
* CLS Strategies, a Washington, D.C. communications firm, was named by Facebook/Meta in 2020 when Meta removed fake accounts and pages tied to operations in Venezuela, Bolivia, and Mexico. Meta defines coordinated inauthentic behavior as efforts to manipulate public debate for a strategic goal where fake accounts are central. PRWeek also reported the takedown as fake accounts and pages managed by CLS. [1] [2]
* Rally Forge, a U.S. marketing firm, was linked by Facebook to a 2020 domestic U.S. operation run on behalf of Turning Point USA, involving fake accounts and coordinated behavior. Axios reported that Facebook removed 200 accounts, 55 pages, and 76 Instagram accounts. [3] [4]
* New Knowledge / Project Birmingham is another ugly example. In the 2017 Alabama Senate race, Democratic-aligned operatives experimented with Russian-style disinformation tactics, including fake or misleading Facebook activity and buying retweets. The effort was reportedly small and probably did not decide the election, but it proves the category exists inside the U.S. political ecosystem. [5] [6]
* There are also U.S.-linked pro-Western covert influence operations. Graphika and the Stanford Internet Observatory analyzed accounts removed by Twitter and Meta for platform manipulation or coordinated inauthentic behavior; later reporting said the Pentagon ordered a review after fake accounts suspected of being run by the U.S. military were taken down. Meta later attributed a campaign targeting the Middle East and Central Asia to people associated with the U.S. military. [7] [8] [9]
* Cambridge Analytica is adjacent but not identical. It had U.S. offices and U.S. political clients, and it was part of the broader “election manipulation for hire” world, but its central scandal was data harvesting, psychographic targeting, and political ad targeting, not necessarily fake-account bot networks in the same narrow sense. [10]
[1] August 2020 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report https://about.fb.com/news/2020/09/august-2020-cib-report/
[2] Facebook deletes dozens of fake accounts, pages run by CLS Strategies https://www.prweek.com/article/1693342/facebook-deletes-doze...
[3] October 2020 Coordinated Inauthentic Behavior Report https://about.fb.com/news/2020/11/october-2020-cib-report/
[4] Facebook removes inauthentic campaign linked to Turning Point USA https://www.axios.com/2020/10/08/facebook-turning-point-usa-...
[5] Researcher whose firm wrote report on Russian interference used questionable online tactics during Alabama Senate race https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/12/19/researc...
[6] Project Birmingham (disinformation campaign) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Birmingham_%28disinfor...
[7] Unheard Voice: Evaluating five years of pro-Western covert influence operations https://public-assets.graphika.com/reports/graphika_stanford...
[8] Meta, Twitter take down accounts pushing pro-U.S. messages https://www.axios.com/2022/08/24/meta-twitter-take-down-acco...
[9] Fewer Bots, More Ads: The Pentagon's Evolving Online Influence Campaigns https://www.lawfaremedia.org/article/fewer-bots--more-ads--t...
[10] Cambridge Analytica https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica
It's disturbing to think that there are people getting paid huge amounts of money by governments, using taxpayer money to f around with politics of other countries... Meanwhile I've been trying to raise a $100K seed round for my startup which I've been working on for 14 years during nights and weekends... and I never even made it the interview phase of a tech incubator. WTF is wrong with people?
I predict that this will be flagged very soon. I would love for HN to publish some data on likes/flags, even anonymous IDs with some infos like account age and number of posts. Sure someome will argue things here get flagged cause they are political, but I don't buy that.
We've had discussions about this sort of stuff before.
As an Israeli (note the article exposing them is Israeli too) I was not aware until I saw this and I definitely intend to protest/organize about this (though to be fair I've been protesting about other stuff in the past and the climate here sucks).
>Sure someome will argue things here get flagged cause they are political, but I don't buy that.
Are you saying that this isn't political? It's literally about politics. The comments section will be predictable and it will be flagged for that.
Do you disagree?
> Are you saying that this isn't political? It's literally about politics.
Sure it's about politics, but it's also about tech. The intersection of politics and tech is a fascinating area, of great interest to many folks on HN, and probably within HN's charter.
I think that merely touching on politics should not be grounds for flagging a submission, even when the specifics are highly controversial (as in this case).
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I do not disagree that there is a political aspect to this article. Todays news on Fable and Mythos are political too. HN has plenty of political articles, yet some are more flagged than others.
I claim there might be a pattern of supression. Are arguing against my main point that it would be good to have more transparency so I can support or refute my claim?
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Just because something is political and is flagged, does not mean it was flagged because it was political.
HN has plenty of unflagged political topics.
UK‘s censorship and surveillance is also political.
Do they get flagged?
it isnt all that interesting from a tech perspective without details about the code and techniques used for doing it.
its worth a flag in that its rage bait, and not surprising or new by any means that israel is aiming to meddle in elections
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The main use case the governments around the world have for the investment in LLMs is being able to attack other countries and their own citizens with these kinds of campaigns.
They worked to influence elective when they were barely researched, had little evidence, and were done by small teams who can barely speak the language. To dismiss these kinds of campaigns come across as either ignorant of the past 15 years or a disingenuous dismissal.
Yeah it's an interesting article because on the one hand, PR firm doing PR and that doesn't seem very newsworthy. On the other hand, there is an extremely good case that the firms doing PR in French elections should be French PR firms and responsive to French law enforcement. Ditto Scotland and New York. I can't find an angle where it looks like a good idea to tolerate well organised and financed foreign guns for hire getting involved in a local election.
Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide. It doesn't tell us much about why they might be targeted for a smear campaign.
> Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide. It doesn't tell us much about why they might be targeted for a smear campaign.
The question if there is a genocide isn't settled, either. There are credible arguments for both viewpoints when it comes to the current iteration of the Palestine conflict.
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> Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide
Uh? The US government and many of the EU governments (i.e. "the West", the world's most powerful economic, diplomatic and military bloc) are either fine with Israel doing whatever it wants or too scared to speak up. All are, in fact, supporting Israel with money and weapons, and it's in Israel's supreme interest to keep the money and the support flowing by damaging any movement and politician that declares to be "pro-Palestine".
That said, I also don't like the (widely used) 'pro-Palestine' label, which implies some kind of partisanship. You don't call the anti-apartheid people "the pro-Blacks".
It's only a while until social media could be turned off before elections if not outright banned. It only free speech for AI bots and psyops campagins. Actual voices get drowned in a sea of slop and propaganda.
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world's most obvious honeypot
Mother of all honeypots!
I am an Israeli and though I dislike this certain brand of companies and would never work in one, I am not sure this is strictly bad.
I assume these were hired by a local candidate (unless someone can think who has a deep interest in French municipal elections)
Currently the only actors who use fake social accounts for election manipulation are the Russians, Chinese, Iran and Qatar.
The west is completely powerless in either fighting back, regulating social networks or coming up with a technological solution.
As democracies are being undermined by foreign influence, from Brexit, to the US elections, I'd rather local parties would have access to these tools than the alternative, and that would be only done using private companies.
Of course the better alternative is getting rid of fake accounts and making social media into a unicorn and bunnies hate-free zone, don't think we are headed there though
> unless someone can think who has a deep interest in French municipal elections
The State of Israel? They are paranoid about their international standing. (Really, just paranoid in general, to an absurd and pathological degree, though for understandable reasons.)
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Ignoring the actual situation as I don't care to go into that right now, just talking about the mechanisms working with here. I did have access accidentally to buy cheap social stuff. Not that it would be hard to run it myself, just wouldn't be worth the effort to make it run well for controllably long time. But anyway, i didn't do anything with it, but i always thought, how do easy it would be for a competent, young, informed government, to realize counteracting the digital influence of foreignn governments is much more important than whatever else they prioritise. Exaggerated, maybe, but it should be at least top 3 or whatever exact position in ones priority list. Because especially: it's so easy, to spend a few thousand euros to hire some really competent people who might just pay some shady social account broker, now even with the use LLMs , much more scalably & effectively, to counteract and do even better stuff than what they do.
But then, remembering bernays, i am happy they are incompetent. The day they reach competency with the toolset that is yet in infancy, i will regret not having tried to control who is running this. On the other hand, you just can't risk doing this. It will lose your control eventually. And without being a conspiracy theorists, it won't be long until more pips (people in power) will notice the ease of influence- and propaganda (in bernays understanding, the one who rebranded it as public relations), through these tools.
Luckily, i've never been in a knife fight. Though i've heard, that with an unskilled fighter, you have pretty bad chances of not getting hurt. But a skilled one is a death sentence. Of course i don't want to be attacked by a knife. And i don't want to take some other unskilled street gangster and train him. Of course, some people get humbled if introduced to power. But many corrupt. And those hungry for power, are rarely those, who should have it. This could be an hour long discussion. But just look around the people you know well. Maybe yourself in certain situations or relationships. Every humans has the potential.
So what i think w
Israel just buys the political support in the open instead.
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Trust me it is hard for your uncle to be "not" anti Israel nowadays.
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Is the USA finally doing something about foreign lobbyists here? Trump is like the ultimate tool here for foreigners to gain influence, no matter the country. Yuri explained this already in the 1980s (!!!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9apDnRRSOCk (it's the KGB view, so biased too, of course, but if you extend it, then also connect it to Epstein, you have basically undermined democracy effectively; a shame Yuri is dead, he would have had a field day with "analysing" Putin).
Nope, the war in Iran is testament to that.
Nope, foreign lobbyists in the guise of AIPAC spent record amounts to primary Thomas Massie.
OP is talking about American's here. AIPAC is made of and paid for AIPAC, like other political packs or other American groups. AIPAC is just Americans, doing the American political thing.
Lol. Just use reddit. No need for creating new platforms
BlackCore? Yeah, those are these Russians meddling in elective all over the Europe and the USA.
I always thought this was a new thing until I read The Palestine Laboratory by Antony Loewenstein. Over more than 50 years Israel has developed a global export industry around military, surveillance, and security technologies that were developed and tested through its control of Palestinian territories, and that these technologies are then marketed and sold worldwide. Buyers are often bad actors that use it to kill and suppress other populations including in Armenia/Azerbaijan, Myanmar, Rwanda genocide, authoritarian governments and many other examples cited in the book.
Wow, again I am dismayed by the antizionism and anti-Israel sentiment. The popularity of this short, weak article on this website, and the vitriol and hate in the comments is unreal. Can't you all go to Reddit?
In 2016 the UK based Cambridge Analytica was blamed for Trump's win in 2016. Then he won again in 2024 without them. Meanwhile both USA parties invested heavily in social media campaigns.
In my country local government elections are in a few months and political parties are already flooding my social media with rage bait (primarily Instagram and Facebook).
This short article is about a private company, not linked to the government, that may or may not have been retained by locals, that may or may not have breached foreign interference laws, and that certainly did not lend its targeted candidates an overwhelming advantage (Mamdani was the most popular candidate in the NYC mayoral election). But because it is about Israel everyone goes crazy.
Is the "meddling" just running campaign ads? I don't really see how an election where voters' brains were hijacked by tiktok ads funded by foreign governments is less legitimate than one where voters' brains were hijacked by tiktok ads funded by local organizations.
You don't see a difference between local and foreign organizations influencing an election?
Most countries only allow citizens to vote. By your logic, they should let anyone vote, because what's the difference between a citizen and a foreigner when it comes to elections?