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Citizen Lab reported that Israeli influence-for-hire contractor BlackCore likely trained Angolan government officials during a 14-week program to conduct online influence operations. The program reportedly used fabricated personas, coordinated messaging, social-media advertising, and content intended to promote narratives favorable to Angola’s government and counter opposing narratives.
The activity centered on the now-offline Agita News website and Facebook page, while BlackCore marketing materials advertised scalable networks of fake accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. The findings link the firm to suspected interference activity spanning Angola, France, Togo, New York, and Scotland; Meta also disrupted a separate Israel-originating coordinated inauthentic-behavior network that Citizen Lab assessed was highly likely operated by BlackCore.
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Meta reported disrupting an Israel-originating coordinated network targeting audiences in Angola and other countries. Citizen Lab assessed that BlackCore was highly likely to have operated the network.
Viginum later identified BlackCore as suspected of interference activity aimed at elections or political audiences in New York, Scotland, Angola, and Togo.
France's foreign-interference watchdog Viginum reported technical links between BlackCore and an operation targeting France Unbowed candidates during municipal elections. The campaign used websites and coordinated social-media accounts to disparage candidates and polarize debate.
After the training began, BlackCore's websites and social-media accounts were taken offline. Agita News's Facebook page and external website are also offline.
Program participants reportedly produced more than 40 content items promoting favorable narratives about Angola's government through the fictitious Agita News outlet, advertising on Facebook and Instagram, and a TikTok campaign.
BlackCore's training program for Angolan government officials likely began in February. The program reportedly ran for 14 weeks and combined instruction with practical online influence operations.
BlackCore proposed a four-week training course for Angolan officials covering storytelling, copywriting, traffic management, and social-media operations.
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OpenAI reported a likely China-origin covert influence operation, dubbed **“Sponsored Discontent,”** that used ChatGPT to generate short English-language comments and long-form Spanish-language articles critical of the United States. The activity reportedly followed mainland China business-hour patterns, used Chinese-language prompts, and in some cases was tied through article bylines to **Jilin Yousen Culture Communication Co., Ltd.** The operation also produced social media posts attacking Chinese dissident **Cai Xia**, behavior OpenAI said was partly consistent with **Spamouflage** tactics. The campaign’s most significant outcome was the successful placement of translated and expanded anti-U.S. narratives from publicly available Chinese-language sources into mainstream Latin American news outlets, particularly in **Peru**, and also in **Mexico** and **Ecuador**, at times apparently as sponsored content. OpenAI assessed the activity as a **Breakout Scale Category 4** influence operation because it penetrated widely read media sites rather than remaining confined to social platforms.
Jul 31, 2026
OpenAI banned a cluster of Russia-linked ChatGPT accounts that used VPNs to evade access restrictions while supporting a covert influence operation posing as the Israel-based **International Burke Institute (IBI)**. The accounts used the model primarily to draft English-language promotional posts and replies and remove linguistic signs of Russian authorship, then distributed content through Substack, Telegram, X, Facebook, and LinkedIn. IBI used a credible-looking website, a pro-Russian “Sovereignty Index,” and apparently copied or misattributed academic material to manufacture authority while portraying Russia favorably and criticizing Western countries. OpenAI assessed the campaign’s direct reach as low—despite affiliated Telegram channels having roughly 10,000 to 20,000 followers—but warned that its reusable infrastructure could enable a more scalable influence operation.
Sep 3, 2026
OpenAI said it disrupted a small network of ChatGPT accounts linked to an operation it calls **“VAGue Focus,”** which used AI to generate social media posts, draft biographies, and translate outreach tied to apparent intelligence-gathering and social-engineering activity. According to the company, the actors posed as journalists, analysts, and consulting professionals associated with **Focus Lens News**, **BrightWave Media Europe**, and **Visionary Advisory Group**, and used the accounts to support outreach related to U.S. economic and financial policy topics. OpenAI reported that the operation used AI-generated content to build personas on **X** and to translate messages, including some outreach that offered payment for classified documents. Drawing on the broader challenge of measuring influence activity, the company assessed the public-facing influence component as **low impact**, citing little authentic engagement, while saying there was not enough evidence to determine whether the covert social-engineering effort succeeded.
Jul 31, 2026