Middle East Monitor

The nearly one hundred articles appeared across publications ranging from small American newspapers to international political commentary websites.

Among them were Daily Kos, Middle East Monitor, CounterPunch, Eurasia Review, Modern Diplomacy, LA Progressive, The Humanist magazine, and International Policy Digest.

Their subjects ranged from American military operations and Israeli policy to immigration, diplomacy, and domestic politics.

Middle East Monitor was one of the most heavily affected publications.

At least twenty-one articles appeared under four fabricated identities.

After the investigation became public, the publication removed the identified material.

Thanks, Narco.

What happened here? This is from Middle East Monitor.

The US on Friday, let me blow this up, imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court hours after former court judge Navi Pillay won the 2026 Nobel Prize, Andalou reports.

President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans.

Thanks, Narco.

What happened here? This is from Middle East Monitor.

The US on Friday, let me blow this up, imposed sanctions on the International Criminal Court hours after former court judge Navi Pillay won the twenty twenty-six Nobel Prize, Andalou reports.

President Trump will never allow the International Criminal Court to prosecute Americans.

That's essentially what it does.

So basically what they're trying to do more so than just, um, [clears throat] get the a- get the articles run, which major publications, uh, uh, LA Progressive, uh, LA Times, uh, I think CNN published some, but a lot of international papers as well, um, uh, Middle East Monitor was a big one of them, um, uh, were...

That they were po- Hundreds of these, right? Hundred of these are getting posted all over the place, and they have links in them that link back to stuff, and then when you search for, uh, you...

If, if you were around back then in the, in the, uh, middle 2000s to middle 2010s, there was something called Google bombing.

Nearly 100 articles were published or republished on more than a dozen websites from July 2025 through October 2026.

Middle East Monitor published at least 21 articles under four bylines OpenAI identified as fictitious, removed them, and is reviewing its opinion submission procedures.

Eric Ziv will limit submissions to two papers per person per calendar month starting October 1st, 2026.

The existing cap of three active submissions at any given time in place since 2024 remains.

But before we do, not so much levity.

Middle East Monitor, over 800 Palestinian teachers have been killed by Israel in the last three years, according to the Gaza Education Ministry.

Okay, let's blow this up.

Make it here.

OpenAI says that report appeared to describe the widest reaching influence operation it has encountered because it drew a response from a political figure.

The Iranian accounts invented seven fake authors and published almost 100 articles in small outlets, including Daily Kos and the Middle East Monitor.

Anthropic has banned what it calls cruel behavior against its Claude AI.

In an update to its usage policy this week, the company now forbids, quote, "sustained and needless abusive or cruel behavior towards its AI models." As AFP puts it, this comes amid a growing philosophical debate over whether artificial intelligence can be conscious.