Nick Cleveland-Stout, a Research Associate in the Democratizing Foreign Policy program at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, discusses his research into Israel’s having hired a conservative-aligned firm, Clock Tower X LLC, led by former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale, to create websites and content designed to train AI models like ChatGPT with pro-Israel messaging aimed primarily at Gen Z audiences. Discussing how Israel is also paying a cohort of 14-18 social media influencers around $7,000 per post, Cleveland-State observes how none of these influencers are neither registering under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) nor are they marking their social media posts as being distributed on behalf of Israel. Cleveland-Stout assesses how Parscale, having previously engaged the services of the microtargeting firm Cambridge Analytica, is influencing how AI GPT models like ChatGPT are being trained to frame topics and respond to them on behalf of Israel. Cleveland-Stout considers how Larry Ellison is poised to establish a media dynasty with his recent purchase of CBS News, of which his son David has taken control, while Ellison is planning a bid for CNN’s parent company, as well as Trump having tapped him to purchase TikTok. All this in addition to Ellison having donated $16.6 million in 2017 to Friends of the IDF, which was the largest-ever donation to the organisation. Cleveland-Stout also details his research into how tens of millions of dollars have been flooding American think tanks directly from foreign governments and defence contractors, with the hope of influencing the analysis of these think tanks, which usually are rubber-stamped as “objective analysis” and who are frequently invited onto legacy media programmes to disseminate their research as “experts.”

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