Israeli firm BlackCore suspected of meddling in New York and Scotland votes
reuters.com168 points by pera 3 hours ago
168 points by pera 3 hours ago
Last time I suggested on a similar story that there's a disproportionate number of firms in Israel with an explicit focus on subversion, manipulation, spying and malware, seemingly because a large portion of the Israeli population gain a certain expertise in these fields as part of serving in the IDF and working to suppress Palestinians, I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace.
If there are, they certainly would do no harm in being more vocal, firms like BlackCore is unfortunately what Israel is becoming known for around the world.
Regardless of what good things other Israeli companies might be doing, it's clear that the Israeli government doesn't have a problem with these malware / spyware companies.
there's not much controversy that would pull media attention in green tech or medical research
The Nazis did a ton of cutting edge research too.
Did they? Like, which exactly?
Rockets: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun
He later worked at NASA.
Don't say that he's hypocritical
Say rather that he's apolitical
"Once the rockets are up, who cares where they come down?
That's not my department!" says Wernher von Braun
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation
Hypothermia research, sleep deprivation research, etc. really cruel stuff.
They also committed genocide as well. Surprising that even after Israeli human rights organizations acknowledge it, it still remains stuck in the mind of capitalists to support profit at any cost.
Remilk is an Israeli food-tech startup using yeasts to produce milk proteins. Frankly I find your comment rather odd, why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state. We have innovative index on which Israel does well and large number of unicorn per capita.
> why should a startup be more loud because other people are biased? Diplomacy is the job of the state.
I agree with you that it is the job of the state to do diplomacy, I would argue that the Israeli state has done an extremely poor job at that, so it may be left to some of its greener industry to pick up the slack, unfortunately.
Not because they 'have to' but because they would want to if they want to expand abroad and not get overshadowed by the bad PR the Israeli state is so good at putting out.
I disagree with you that 'other people are biased'.
One of the reasons Israeli soft power is so weak at the moment is precisely because its diplomats always insist everyone is just simply biased against Israel, often invoking some thousands year old hatred of its people etc. rather than for one second introspecting on the fact that the actions of the state may indeed have something to do with that perceived bias.
It should indeed be the job of Israeli diplomats to work and promote Israel in the best light possible
Israeli here - I'll try to write this the least political as I can since I on one hand disagree strongly with the government and on the other my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot (and likely downvotes but who cares I've been here 10 years and have more fake points than is important anyway).
Israel has several "cores" of technology. The military stuff is shameful (as well as other stuff). It's not just the NSOs (or less infamously the Wiz's/Palo Altos etc).
There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space. I'll spare you the long list of stuff like Mellanox that drives Nvidias in data centers and leave the googling of medtech to you. Lots of neutral stuff too.
> my experience has been getting antisemstic (yes, not anti-zionist) comments whenever this gets discussed a lot
I appreciate your experience. I have no doubt there's indeed been an increase in such comments. I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two.
> There are plenty of good things though - startups in the biotech/health/classic "tech" space.
That's good to know, as I said in another comment, it may be time for those startups to make themselves heard more, not because they have to, but because it is in their interest if they have any expansion plans going forward, given what a poor PR the Israeli state and firms like NSO, BlackCore etc. give the Israeli tech scene.
> it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism
This is definitely made easier by the fact that the arrogance, the endless lawyering, the shady dealings, the greediness, the constant switching between attacking and playing the victim, they all match to a tee the most known historical antisemitic tropes.
> I think it's important to note that the Israeli government does work very hard to conflate Zionism with Judaism, (which itself seems antisemitic to me), making it harder for some to separate the two.
Yes, they are trying their hardest with their actions to fuel a new way of antisemitism.
Turns out if you are a religious fundamental colony that occupies territory based on the bible, that gives bad rap to the whole religion.
"working to suppress Palestinians" isn't exactly a neutral observation, I'm not surprised you got accused of bias.
> I got accused of bias because apparently there's many more Israeli startups working on medical research, green technology and world peace.
Meddling with foreign affairs is a well established practice, and that's just life.
Israeli do that, North Koreans do that, Russians do that, Americans do that (think former CIA/FBI people, think Palantir etc).
Highlighting that specific nation (Israel) for those practices while ignoring all other positive contributions (dumb example since we're on HN: Graviton processors came from Annapurna labs, an israeli company, and they gave the definitive push for ARM in the datacenter by proving it's effectively feasible and cost-effective) is borderline antisemitic.
So yeah, you got called out and rightfully so (and you should really review your biases).
Russians do not do that. It is contrary to our culture.
There was a lord (knyaz) in old times who even warned enemies that he is going to attack them. Of course it is not as advantageous as a covert approach. But it is very Russian.
When you hear otherwise it is those other entities targeting you, that's all.
I predict that this will be flagged very soon. I would love for HN to publish some data on likes/flags, even anonymous IDs with some infos like account age and number of posts. Sure someome will argue things here get flagged cause they are political, but I don't buy that.
We've had discussions about this sort of stuff before.
As an Israeli (note the article exposing them is Israeli too) I was not aware until I saw this and I definitely intend to protest/organize about this (though to be fair I've been protesting about other stuff in the past and the climate here sucks).
>Sure someome will argue things here get flagged cause they are political, but I don't buy that.
Are you saying that this isn't political? It's literally about politics. The comments section will be predictable and it will be flagged for that.
Do you disagree?
> Are you saying that this isn't political? It's literally about politics.
Sure it's about politics, but it's also about tech. The intersection of politics and tech is a fascinating area, of great interest to many folks on HN, and probably within HN's charter.
I think that merely touching on politics should not be grounds for flagging a submission, even when the specifics are highly controversial (as in this case).
I do not disagree that there is a political aspect to this article. Todays news on Fable and Mythos are political too. HN has plenty of political articles, yet some are more flagged than others.
I claim there might be a pattern of supression. Are arguing against my main point that it would be good to have more transparency so I can support or refute my claim?
The purpose is support enterprises which have investment in genocide, the free speech nature of this website was always questionable at best.
>I claim there might be a pattern of supression.
Do you want to count how many times words like nazi, genocide, terrorists appears in comments section about Anthropic vs here? Do you see the difference?
But I am going to point to https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Blackcore isn't a startup. It was already covered everywhere in the news. So there is no need to post yet again.
What a surprise..
"Lecornu said the French government had asked Israel for explanations of BlackCore's actions, and also for help in trying to find out who may have been behind the smear campaign."
This is a very well executed bit of diplomacy.
Nonsense, it'll end up with merely some public head scratching and shrugs, and a "gee whiz monsieur, it sure is a mystery to us too".
Interesting that whatever they wanted to do backfired in NYC.
Here in Scotland it seems the desinfo campaign targeted mostly the SNP and Swinney. I guess it's hard to know how effective it was but his party lost 6 seats in last month's elections.
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/26188090.john-swinney-ta...
Ahh... I see some cracks in the mirror, but the posts were tidied away. So, please dear people, the EU is a happy little family, and we're all friends. There are no burning cars or discontent here. Move along. We're all frieds! ;)
Brazilians up to their usual tricks!
As an Israeli this is shameful though I find it nowhere (company registry, news sites etc) locally so I wonder how they figured it out.
If anyone is from here and is up for protesting this hit me up at username @ gmail
(leaving any other politics I disagree with aside)
I am an Israeli and though I dislike this certain brand of companies and would never work in one, I am not sure this is strictly bad.
I assume these were hired by a local candidate (unless someone can think who has a deep interest in French municipal elections)
Currently the only actors who use fake social accounts for election manipulation are the Russians, Chinese, Iran and Qatar.
The west is completely powerless in either fighting back, regulating social networks or coming up with a technological solution.
As democracies is being undermined by foreign influence, from Brexit, to the US elections, I'd rather local parties would have access to these tools than the alternative, and that would be only done using private companies.
Of course the better alternative is getting rid of fake accounts and making social media into a unicorn and bunnies hate-free zone, don't think we are headed there though
I would love to hear from someone knowledgeable - is that bad for the company or good?
Another entry in the 'Black' villain line, along with BlackStone, BlackRock, BlackWater etc ... really makes you think the world is run by a thinly veiled cult of evil comic style villains.
A shocker!
It's disturbing to think that there are people getting paid huge amounts of money by governments, using taxpayer money to f around with politics of other countries... Meanwhile I've been trying to raise a $100K seed round for my startup which I've been working on for 14 years during nights and weekends... and I never even made it the interview phase of a tech incubator. WTF is wrong with people?
BlackCore? Yeah, those are these Russians meddling in elective all over the Europe and the USA.
The same Israeli BlackCore that masqueraded as a humanitarian fund for Gaza and stole the money?
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/security-aviation/2026-0...
Lowest of the low.
The israeli ambassador in France should already have been kicked out a while ago for a myriad of reasons, I'm ashamed my country is so spineless.
Europeans couldn't even get Israel out of a silly pop song contest, so it seems a bit hopeless to expect any actual political action.
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You do realize French did administer Lebanon? All of those things led to that hot mess of a region.
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As of September 2025, the State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 157 of the 193 member states of the United Nations (UN), or just over 81% of all UN members.
Hamas, not so much.
A Dutch commentator said something incredibly profound that stuck with me: Israel is a Middle Eastern country instead of an outpost of European civilization.
How is this profound? Only the goofiest evangelical boomers nowadays are hanging onto comically misguided propaganda like this. The rest of us can't wait for boomers to get out of the way so we can put an end to their stranglehold on Western politicians and mainstream media while we inexplicably send billions of dollars their way for the privilege.
I wonder what makes Europeans think Israel is an outpost of European civilization - just the skin tone? Lol.
Israel has always been a country trying to coopt the culture of its Arab neighbors. They've tried to claim shawarmas, falafel and hummus, dishes that are quintessentially Arabic, as their own.
Skin tone? The aspiration to assign Western concepts of racism to Israeli society is so uninformed, if I am to be assuming good intentions, or very manipulative. More than half of Israeli Jews immigrated from Arab countries, and look Arab by all means. Including myself. It's literally impossible to tell if someone is an Israeli or a Palestinian based on their skin tone.
> Israel has always been a country trying to coopt the culture of its Arab neighbors. They've tried to claim shawarmas, falafel and hummus, dishes that are quintessentially Arabic, as their own.
That argument is just as much BS as the squabbles in the Balkans over who can claim Nikola Tesla, cevapcici, burek/börek, döner/gyros, pljeskavica and a whole other host of foods. Everyone got their own takes on food and trying to act like shawarma/falafel/hummus are "exclusively" Arabic (or Israeli) is borderline moronic.
Baklava is a fairly good example of a “regional, not cultural” food.
I have enjoyed Greek, Turkish, Lebanese, Moroccan, Afghan, and Iranian baklava.
Each culture puts its own stamp on the food.
Also dumplings, tortellini, Maultaschen, pierogi, ... Local pride across the globe, kinda boring around the world.
Is the USA finally doing something about foreign lobbyists here? Trump is like the ultimate tool here for foreigners to gain influence, no matter the country. Yuri explained this already in the 1980s (!!!): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9apDnRRSOCk (it's the KGB view, so biased too, of course, but if you extend it, then also connect it to Epstein, you have basically undermined democracy effectively; a shame Yuri is dead, he would have had a field day with "analysing" Putin).
Nope, foreign lobbyists in the guise of AIPAC spent record amounts to primary Thomas Massie.
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The main use case the governments around the world have for the investment in LLMs is being able to attack other countries and their own citizens with these kinds of campaigns.
They worked to influence elective when they were barely researched, had little evidence, and were done by small teams who can barely speak the language. To dismiss these kinds of campaigns come across as either ignorant of the past 15 years or a disingenuous dismissal.
Yeah it's an interesting article because on the one hand, PR firm doing PR and that doesn't seem very newsworthy. On the other hand, there is an extremely good case that the firms doing PR in French elections should be French PR firms and responsive to French law enforcement. Ditto Scotland and New York. I can't find an angle where it looks like a good idea to tolerate well organised and financed foreign guns for hire getting involved in a local election.
Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide. It doesn't tell us much about why they might be targeted for a smear campaign.
> Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide. It doesn't tell us much about why they might be targeted for a smear campaign.
The question if there is a genocide isn't settled, either. There are credible arguments for both viewpoints when it comes to the current iteration of the Palestine conflict.
Ah that "both sides".
I stubbed my toe on a rock while trying to kick it. Both sides got hurt.
Forced displacement and systematic art/books destruction, I don't need more arguments tbh.
> Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide
Uh? The US government and many of the EU governments (i.e. "the West", the world's most powerful economic, diplomatic and military bloc) are either fine with Israel doing whatever it wants or too scared to speak up. All are, in fact, supporting Israel with money and weapons, and it's in Israel's supreme interest to keep the money and the support flowing by damaging any movement and politician that declares to be "pro-Palestine".
That said, I also don't like the (widely used) 'pro-Palestine' label, which implies some kind of partisanship. You don't call the anti-apartheid people "the pro-Blacks".
It's only a while until social media could be turned off before elections if not outright banned. It only free speech for AI bots and psyops campagins. Actual voices get drowned in a sea of slop and propaganda.