What is Israeli firm STOIC and how it tried to disrupt Lok Sabha polls 2024

OpenAI, in a key report, revealed that an Israeli-based political campaign management firm STOIC tried to meddle with the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in India

Artificial intelligence major OpenAI on Friday made startling revelations that an Israeli-based firm STOIC attempted to meddle with the ongoing Lok Sabha elections in India by spreading AI generated misinformation about the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

OpenAI’s report titled ‘AI and Covert Influence Operations’ said that it identified a campaign from a commercial company in Israel called STOIC, which was “stalled within 24 hours” of its commencement by the AI major.

“In May, the network began generating comments that focused on India, criticised the ruling BJP party and praised the opposition Congress party,” it said, adding that it acted within 24 hours to disrupt the activity after it began.

What do we know about STOIC and its operation?

STOIC is an Israel-based political campaign management firm, which also generated content on the ongoing Gaza conflict.

According to OpenAI’s report STOIC was involved in spreading anti-Hamas, anti-Qatar, pro-Israel, anti-BJP, and pro-Histadrut (trade unions organisation) content across the internet. The report said that STOIC’s operation, which the AI giant nicknamed as ‘Zero Zeno’ in its report, targeted audiences in Canada, the United States and Israel with content in English and Hebrew.

“In honour of the founder of the stoic school of philosophy, and to reflect the low levels of

engagement that the network attracted, we have nicknamed it ‘Zero Zeno’,” the report added.

“The operation used our models to generate web articles and social media comments,” OpenAI said, adding that these were then shared on various social media platforms.

OpenAI said it banned ‘clusters of accounts’ operated by STOIC from Israel, which were being used to edit and generate misleading content. The company’s LinkedIn page appears to be unavailable at the moment.

BJP’s reaction to STOIC operation

The BJP sharply reacted to the news, which surfaced merely a couple days before the Lok Sabha election results.

Union Minister of State for Electronics and IT, Rajeev Chandrasekhar, took to X and wrote, “It is absolutely clear and obvious that BJP was and is the target of influence operations, misinformation and foreign interference, being done by and/or on behalf of some Indian political parties. This is a very dangerous threat to our democracy. It is clear vested interests in India and outside are clearly driving this and needs to be deeply scrutinised and investigated and exposed.”