China's state security minister warns that AI-powered cognitive warfare—including deepfakes, synthetic media, and bot armies—threatens the country's political and ideological security. The article explains how AI is particularly suited for exploiting the 'illusory truth effect,' enabling authoritarian actors to repeat messaging at scale to gradually erode public skepticism and shape opinion without necessarily convincing populations of new ideas.
X identified a 200,000-account bot farm suspected of Chinese origin, with 200 accounts spreading claims that AI data centers drive up electricity prices and strain power grids. The accounts used fake American names and AI-generated content to manipulate debate on U.S. AI and energy policy, though legitimate local concerns about data centers also exist independently of foreign propaganda.
The article claims that current events mirror Microsoft's historical campaign against Linux, arguing that social media propagandists and government officials are promoting a narrative that will only widen wealth inequality rather than address legitimate safety concerns.
Anthropic reported that military and government actors in Iran, Yemen, and the UAE used Claude AI for weapons development, targeting, and influence campaigns between December 2025 and August 2026. Yemen-based actors used Claude to develop guidance software for ballistic missiles and conducted test-fires, while Iranian actors compiled targeting data on US Navy vessels and conducted surveillance operations. Anthropic disrupted the malicious activity, banned accounts, and shared threat intelligence with partners.
Trịnh Thị Ngọ (1931–2016), known as Hanoi Hannah, was a Vietnamese radio broadcaster who made English-language propaganda broadcasts for North Vietnam during the Vietnam War aimed at demoralizing US troops. She read casualty lists, played anti-war songs, and delivered messages designed to persuade American soldiers that US involvement was unjust, though few desertions resulted from her work.
A 1945 War Department educational fact sheet on fascism distributed to U.S. soldiers as part of Army orientation training. This public domain document was produced by the Army Orientation Branch to inform military personnel about the ideology.