These Journalists Explain How The Company “Influenced Dozens of Elections”

Spreading disinformation to influence elections: This is nothing new to happen, but the activities of an Israeli company revealed on Wednesday take the practice to a whole new level. Three journalists sneaked into the company and revealed that businessmen and politicians from around the world were paying for the company’s services for personal reasons. For example, the company would try to influence dozens of presidential elections around the world.

“From the first date, I didn’t believe what I saw,” says Israeli journalist Gur Megiddo. “I knew then that it was huge.” He is involved in the covert operation and tells Nieuwsuur how he and two of his colleagues – an Israeli and a Frenchman – worked.

For six months, journalists pretended to be interested in the services of the Israeli company, nicknamed “The Jorge Team”. They met several times with the boss of the company, “Jorge” whose real name is Tal Hanan. During these meetings, Jorge demonstrated what he could offer to his so-called new clients.

“In the first presentation we received, we saw emails and telegrams from people close to the Kenyan presidential candidate,” Megiddo says. This presentation took place a few days before last summer’s presidential election in Kenya. The accounts belonged to associates of William Ruto, the candidate who later won the election.

Jorge showed reporters that he could not only see emails and Telegram messages, but also send messages. To illustrate, it sent the number 11 to a hacked employee’s port, but was unable to delete that message. The journalists then contacted the recipient of the message, who agreed to share the chat conversation. There was message number 11.

In addition to hacking accounts, Team Jorge has developed a system that automatically creates fake profiles on social media. He named this system AIMS: Advanced Impact Media Solutions.

Here Megiddo talks about how AIMS works:

To demonstrate what AIMS is capable of, Jorge has agreed to launch an Emu Emmanuel-centric social media campaign that went viral last summer. “We decided to spread the word that he passed away, so we asked Jorge to start a campaign with the hashtag #RIP_Emmanuel.”

The Internet hit Emmanuel with his owner:

This campaign allowed journalists to scrutinize profiles that spread this hashtag. “That’s how we learned that these avatars were used in nineteen other campaigns around the world. Business people, political campaigns, etc.

Megiddo emphasizes that everything Jorge says to reporters should not be taken lightly. For example, he claims that Team Jorge tried to influence 33 presidential elections, 27 of which were “successful”. Researchers have not been able to confirm whether this is true. “We know he was involved in hacking with Cambridge Analytica in the 2015 Nigerian presidential election.”

Move down

The journalist emphasizes that Hanan’s service is not an isolated case, but the tip of the iceberg. “We wanted to delve deeper into the world of the ‘information industry’. We all know bots are active on social media, but we wanted to show the world how this works in the backend. But we tried it with other companies and we couldn’t get in there.”

Anat Ben-David, a digital media researcher at the Open University of Israel, is deeply concerned about the commercial spread of disinformation and hacking. “The fact that these services exist and are available to people working in the election campaign makes the election a race to the bottom.”

Ben-David hopes the clarifications will lead to better regulation. “By classifying this as cybercrime, we can ensure that these methods are no longer used to influence elections.”

Source: NOS