We're doing AI generated smear campaigns now

Yale University has suspended a law school scholar after an AI-generated news website claimed that she was a member of a terrorist organization.

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Helyeh Doutaghi, a well regarded international law scholar, has been working as the deputy director of the Law and Political Economy Project at Yale Law School since 2023. The project promoted itself as fighting for “economic, racial and gender equality” and seemed to be aligned with Doutaghi’s progressive values. Doutaghi is an outspoken advocate for pro-Palestinian causes, and had supported Palestinian’s right to self governance in academic papers and public appearances.

On March 2, however, a shady AI-genetated fake news website called Jewish Onliner with ties to Israeli disinformation campaigns, ran a story claiming that Doutaghi was a member of “Samidoun,” a US-designated terror group. Samidoun: Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, is an international pro-Palestinian advocacy group, which the Treasury Department has claimed is a “sham charity” raising money for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

Jewish Onliner is active on X and publishes a Substack newsletter, which it describes as “empowered by A.I. capabilities." In January, Haaretz reported that The Jewish Onliner has been engaged in AI bot activity on X and has ties to Act.il, a “well-known hasbara initiative based out of Reichman University (formerly known as IDC Herzliya) set up a number of years ago as part of Israel's battle against the BDS movement.”