Wednesday, August 26, 2026
OpenAI bans Russian accounts running covert influence campaign
OpenAI said August 25 it banned a cluster of ChatGPT accounts, routed through VPNs from Russia, that used the model to generate social media comments and articles for a fake think tank called the International Burke Institute, which falsely claimed to feature prominent Western academics. OpenAI found that 34 of 36 reviewed articles from the site's purported experts were copied from elsewhere online, and that the operation promoted a sovereignty index designed to rate Russia favorably against Western countries.
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