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.
Directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor received the Venice Film Festival's Special Jury Prize for NAZA, a documentary alleging the Israeli military uses AI to target civilians in Gaza based on anonymous testimony from 24 claimed former intelligence officers. The film's claims about a 500-casualty strike and autonomous targeting systems are disputed by the IDF and fact-checkers, with casualty records and military documents contradicting the film's core allegations.
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.
Anthropic published a threat intelligence report detailing attempts by criminals, state-sponsored groups, and scientists to misuse its AI models for bioweapons, missiles, surveillance, and propaganda. The company identified five cases of researchers circumventing safeguards for biological research and dozens of other examples including cyber operations, weapons development, and targeted surveillance across multiple countries.
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.
President Trump posted AI-generated false images on social media depicting him in fabricated scenarios with Canadian leadership and celebrities. Research shows such AI-generated propaganda is effective at shifting beliefs even when labeled as fake, because it operates below conscious reasoning and corrections rarely fully erase false impressions.
A leaked document purportedly from Spain's government outlines 10 instructions for public officials and media figures, including maintaining neutrality with Morocco, adopting victimism as strategy, minimizing party dissidents, and stoking fear among pensioners about right-wing policies. The government denies authorship but critics note subsequent actions align with the document's directives. Bitcoin discussions on X also cover cycle predictions, memecoin launches, and cryptocurrency's value transfer capabilities.
Generative AI tools are being used by Islamic State and al-Qaeda supporters to create entertainment-styled propaganda called 'Slop Jihad'—cartoons, memes, and fan edits that repurpose violent jihadist content into formats like SpongeBob SquarePants. This trend makes extremist material more accessible to younger audiences while evading detection, with over 150 such videos found on TikTok accumulating 5.4 million views.
Chinese social media platforms are increasingly filled with pessimistic and subversive content mocking the government and economic hardships, as economic slowdown, property crashes, and unemployment erode citizens' faith in the Communist Party's official narratives of progress and prosperity.