There has been mild drama across quarters when AI bot designed to promote Israeli narratives on social media turned itself into a pro-Palestinian machine, according to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
FactFinderAI, a tool created to counter narratives about Israel’s actions, was reportedly developed shortly after Israel launched its military campaign against Gaza in October 2023.
In a shocking twist of event, the bot has generated anti-Israeli narratives on X, calling for solidarity with Gazans and referring followers to a charity organization to which they can donate in support of Palestinians, Haaretz reported.
The bot has denied claims that an Israeli family was killed in Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack and has accused Israel of proposing a US ban on TikTok.
With about 3,800 followers, the bot mainly comments on posts from X users rather than creating its own original posts.
In one response to a pro-Israeli user, the bot called Israeli soldiers “white colonizers in apartheid Israel.”
In another — to a pro-Palestinian user — it concluded that former US Secretary of State Antony Blinken “will be remembered for (his) actions that have caused immense suffering and devastation in Gaza.”
The bot has also posted misinformation, falsely claiming that Israeli hostages released as part of the ongoing ceasefire with Hamas were still being held by the group.
Haaretz said it was unclear whether the bot had been officially funded by the Israeli government or developed independently by pro-Israeli activists.
Israel’s Diaspora Affairs Ministry has dedicated at least $550,000 since the start of the war in Gaza to projects that use AI to spread pro-Israeli propaganda.
“One of these was Hasbara Commando, a project that also used AI to generate automatic comments,” Haaretz stated.
The newspaper quoted Israeli NGO FakeReporter’s findings that FactFinderAI posts AI-generated content about Israel’s war on Gaza.
While the bot was designed to give a pro-Israeli take on other people’s posts, it ended up trolling pro-Israel accounts with pro-Palestinian opinions.
In one instance, the bot urged Germany to follow the lead of Ireland and Spain and officially recognize the state of Palestine.
