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Impact reported that Sébastien Cauet believed that asking high school students to choose between Israel and Palestine amounted to making them anti-Semitic. According to him, they would answer "Palestine" without knowing why. The host, who has been indicted for rape and sexual assaults on four women, allegedly compared some high school students to parrots and called on them to think for themselves if they wanted to be heard. Impact specified that the media was linked to the Bolloré group. #Israël #Palestine #Éducation (translated)

Marcel wrote that a man compared schools to French maternity wards, presenting them as places where citizens come into the world. He stated that this person indeed made those remarks and deemed his statement "incredible." https://t.co/ll1ngogIRX #Éducation #Citoyenneté #France (translated)

In Clermont-Ferrand, Jean-Luc Mélenchon gathered over 10,000 people at a meeting where he presented his proposals on youth and education, notably the abolition of Parcoursup and the request for the right to vote at 16, in response to the anger of high school students. #Mélenchon #Jeunesse #Éducation (translated)

FRENCHRAPUS presented several claims that he said were made during the demonstration on October 17. They concerned, in particular, purchasing power, with increases in wages, an adjustment of the minimum wage, and a reduction in prices, as well as education and studies, with better conditions, more resources, and more places at university, a reform of scholarships, and a re-evaluation of Parcoursup and MonMaster. He also cited demands regarding the protection and support of employees, people with disabilities, and job seekers, as well as unemployment compensation. In the field of health, he mentioned the need for more medical staff and better reimbursement for healthcare. For overseas territories, he mentioned demands for a reduction in the cost of living and flight tickets, an increase in wages, and improvements to the water supply network. He also referred to more accessible transportation, improvement of the network, and a decrease in fuel prices. Finally, FRENCHRAPUS indicated that the demands included better consideration of testimonials, support for victims of violence, and harsher penalties in cases of serious misconduct or intentional endangerment. He also mentioned the importance of listening to citizens' demands and defending purchasing power. #Manif17Octobre #Revendiations #PouvoirDachat (translated)

The author claimed that Texas’s MAGA leaders had imposed strict state controls on teaching, research and discussion in universities, presenting the measures as a fight against left-wing propaganda and indoctrination. The author said the controls were intended to ensure universities taught MAGA propaganda and indoctrination. https://t.co/N4BY9ON4J3 #MAGA #Education #FreeSpeech #US

Jean-Luc Mélenchon criticized Parcoursup, which he accused of forcing young people aged 14 or 15 to choose ten possible orientations and write ten cover letters. According to him, this process pushed them to lie from the second letter onwards and to write anything from the fourth. He described the procedure as a trial for families across three generations and claimed that it only served to turn knowledge into a market. As a counter-model, he advocated for a France that would cultivate intellectual abilities in order to secure a future. #Parcoursup #Éducation #RéformeÉducative (translated)

The author called for the abolition of Parcoursup, stating that 100,000 young people had been unable to access higher education at the start of the school year. He criticized Mr. Attal for claiming that he had not participated in the creation of the platform, while he had been the rapporteur of the law in the National Assembly. https://t.co/6l7jdCCUm0 #Parcoursup #Education #Étudiants #FR (translated)

The author stated that 90% of universities had joined the student movement and that students faced the same obstacles in accessing bachelor's, master's, and doctoral degrees. He denounced selection and the role of money, and stated his support for education, teaching, and the acquisition of knowledge. https://t.co/RHfD9SrboI #Éducation #Étudiants #Savoirs #FR (translated)

Jean-Luc Mélenchon presented the high school movement as a sign of the end of a period during which the young had been the victims. He stated that the degradation of education had been methodically organized for over 15 years and that neoliberals had established competition among institutions and students. According to him, treating knowledge as a commodity would lead to an obscurantist society, which he said he wished to end. #Éducation #Jeunesse #Lycéens (translated)

La France insoumise relayed the comments of Assia and Marwan, presented as high school students from Clermont present at Mélenchon's 2027 meeting in Clermont-Ferrand. They denounced the stress caused by Parcoursup from the very first day and the need to choose a future with no possibility of turning back. They called on Mr. Lecornu to unlock 10 billion for schools, their renovation, the presence of teachers throughout the year, and university places, adding that they would not stop without this. #Parcoursup #Éducation #Réforme (translated)

It's still organizable and I believe it is desirableProposal for a primary from the right and the center for 2027: "It's still organizable and I believe it is desirable," declares David Lisnard, president of Nouvelle Énergie and presidential candidate There is a problem of efficiencyHigh school mobilization: "There is a problem of efficiency" in the education sector, details David Lisnard, president of Nouvelle Énergie and presidential candidate #MobilisationLycéenne #JeanLucMélenchon #Présidentielle2027 (translated)

Paul Vannier paid tribute to Samuel Paty, whom he described as having been assassinated six years earlier by a terrorist for teaching. He also sent his thoughts to Dominique Bernard, to the loved ones and colleagues of both men, and believed that teachers should have peace and protection. https://t.co/hU8rQqYEmo #Hommage #Liberté #Éducation (translated)

There is a problem of efficiency Mobilization of high school students: "There is a problem of efficiency" in the education sector, details David Lisnard, president of Nouvelle Énergie and presidential candidate Knee strike from a police officer to the face of a young protester: these images "hurt" the police, declares David Lisnard, president of Nouvelle Énergie and presidential candidate I only believe in individual responsibility Nantes University vandalized: "I only believe in individual responsibility," declares David Lisnard, president of Nouvelle Énergie and presidential candidate It's unbearable, it's unacceptable Nantes University vandalized: "It's unbearable, it's unacceptable," declares David Lisnard, president of Nouvelle Énergie and presidential candidate #MobilisationLycéenne #MaintienDeLOrdre #ViolencesPolicières (translated)

Operation Dark Clark – Russia built a real organisation around a false identity Most influence operations create fake people, fake websites or fake news stories. Operation Dark Clark appears to have gone considerably further: Russian operators built what looked like a functioning research organisation in Latin America, employed real people to produce genuine research and concealed from those employees who was ultimately directing their work. OpenAI disclosed the operation on 8 October after banning a cluster of accounts originating in Russia. The actors used ChatGPT while targeting countries across Latin America, principally to damage Ukraine’s reputation, manipulate domestic political debates and manage a self-described research organisation called the Social Research Center, or SRC. OpenAI assessed Dark Clark as Category Five on the six-level Breakout Scale, the first operation it has disrupted since beginning its influence-operation reporting to reach that level. A front organisation with real employees The SRC presented itself as a research platform studying subjects including Latin America’s relationship with India and the Indian diaspora. OpenAI found more than 60 articles on its website, most of them apparently original rather than plagiarised. Internal reports produced by the Russian operators discussed hiring, dismissals, salary scales, staffing and unfinished research projects, strongly suggesting that the operators controlled the organisation rather than merely collaborating with it. At the centre of the structure was “Mia Clark”, a fictitious identity reportedly used to manage social-media activity and communicate with staff. According to OpenAI, the available evidence indicates that employees working for SRC in Latin America were probably unaware that the organisation was being directed by Russian actors. They interviewed experts, conducted research and wrote papers in what appears to have been good faith. The deception therefore existed primarily at the organisational level: much of the work was real, but the identity and strategic purpose of the institution commissioning it were not. OpenAI This is one reason Dark Clark differs from the familiar model of a troll farm. A reader encountering an SRC paper might be looking at research genuinely written by a Latin American employee based on genuine interviews. The manipulation lies further upstream, in who built the institution, selected its direction and controlled its infrastructure. From forged emails to real events The operation also appears to have attempted something more ambitious than online persuasion: inducing real people to produce events that could later be turned into propaganda. In May 2026, according to the operators’ internal reports, they created an email address impersonating Lima’s regional education authorities and instructed schools to organise activities about Ukraine for a cultural-diversity event. The instructions included references to Stepan Bandera, whose historical legacy remains particularly contentious in Poland and parts of Eastern Europe. The operators claimed that some schools complied, replied to the false address and sent photographs of the events. OpenAI could not independently verify every claim contained in the operators’ reports. It did, however, find Peruvian reporting matching the story, followed by publications in Poland and an English-language outlet in Hungary. Some coverage included comments from a Polish MEP calling for people displaying what he described as anti-Polish attitudes to be declared persona non grata. OpenAI therefore concluded that the fabricated starting point appears to have entered genuine political debate across national borders. The mechanism is unusually effective because the final photographs need not themselves be fabricated. If people can be tricked into staging a real event on the basis of a forged instruction, the operation creates authentic visual evidence of something that was artificially initiated. The same method in Ecuador and Bolivia Dark Clark’s internal reports describe similar efforts elsewhere. In Ecuador, the operators claimed they used a fake education email to encourage schools to stage ceremonies involving President Daniel Noboa and Erik Prince, the former head of Blackwater. Ecuadorian media subsequently covered a matching controversy, and the country’s education minister issued a detailed denial. Other Ecuador-focused material included fabricated audio attributed to Ukraine’s consul and a false television report alleging that Noboa’s government was recruiting Ecuadorians to fight in Ukraine. Local fact-checker Lupa found that the supposed Teleamazonas report had never been broadcast, that images had been taken from Instagram, that the audio was AI-generated and that a company named in a supposed recruitment contract did not exist in Ecuador’s corporate registry. In Bolivia, an internal report described a fake audio recording supposedly made by an employee of state water company EPSAS during anti-government protests. It claimed that water supplies to La Paz would be cut and a state of emergency declared. The allegation produced a fact-check and an official denial. OpenAI says the operators explicitly described their objective as worsening the political crisis surrounding the demonstrations. Possible links to the post-Wagner influence machine Dark Clark did not emerge in a vacuum. The operators repeatedly asked ChatGPT about Politology and La Compania, names associated in previous investigations with the Russian influence apparatus that developed from structures once connected to Yevgeny Prigozhin. Forbidden Stories and its partners obtained 1,431 pages of internal documents describing a network known as “The Company”, which they reported had grown to almost 100 operatives and was conducting influence projects across roughly 30 Global South countries. Their investigation found that the organisation moved under the supervision of Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service, the SVR, after Prigozhin’s death. Its documented budget for ten months of activity in 2024 was approximately €7.3 million. Two older Argentina campaigns claimed in Dark Clark’s internal reports — a false story about Javier Milei buying Cartier collars for his dogs and the staging of anti-Milei graffiti — had already been independently attributed by investigative journalists to Politology/La Compania. That is significant corroboration, but it is not enough to prove that every Dark Clark activity was run by the same organisational structure. AI was the back office, not the mastermind Perhaps the most important finding concerns artificial intelligence itself. In most documented cases, the Russians were not using ChatGPT to generate the propaganda seen by the public. Their principal use was administrative: drafting reports for an unknown superior, summarising operations, translating material and recording the supposed success of campaigns. Those reports also expose a weakness in the operators’ own measurement. OpenAI found instances in which they tried to claim credit for developments they had probably not caused, suggesting that they were not only attempting to manipulate Latin American audiences but also presenting an inflated picture of their effectiveness to whoever was supervising them. Dark Clark nevertheless broke further into the real world than any influence operation OpenAI had previously disrupted. Under the Brookings framework, Category Five means that an operation has escaped its original network and been amplified by high-profile individuals such as politicians. Dark Clark crossed that threshold because fabricated narratives appear to have provoked governmental denials, mainstream reporting and political comment in several countries. Its most important innovation was therefore not a particularly convincing deepfake. It was the construction of a partly genuine institution around a concealed foreign controller. The research could be real. The employees could be real. The interviews could be real. What was false was who they were ultimately working for. Sources OpenAI — Disrupting AI-enabled “false front” operations https://openai.com/index/disrupting-ai-enabled-false-front-operations/ Forbidden Stories — Propaganda Machine: Russia’s foreign influence strategy across three continents https://forbiddenstories.org/propaganda-machine-secret-documents-reveal-russias-foreign-influence-strategy-across-three-continents/ Forbidden Stories — Ghost Journalists, Cash and Kremlin Scripts: Argentina https://forbiddenstories.org/ghost-journalists-cash-and-kremlin-scripts-how-russian-operatives-tried-to-influence-argentinian-media/ openDemocracy — Russian influence operation in Bolivia https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/russia-bolivia-south-america-putin-evo-morales-wagner-prigozhin-covert-operations-propaganda-disinformation-foreign-interference/ Lupa Media — Fake Teleamazonas report about recruiting Ecuadorians for Ukraine https://lupa.com.ec/verificaciones/noboa-mercenarios-ucrania-ecuador/ Brookings Institution — The Breakout Scale https://www.brookings.edu/articles/the-breakout-scale-measuring-the-impact-of-influence-operations/ Keywords: #DISINFORMED #Episode17 #OperationDarkClark #DarkClark #Russia #LatinAmerica #RussianInfluence #RussianDisinformation #Disinformation #InformationWarfare #InfluenceOperations #ForeignInterference #FIMI #FalseFront #FrontOrganisation #FakeInstitution #SocialResearchCenter #SRC #ArtificialIntelligence #AI #GenerativeAI #ChatGPT #OpenAI #NarrativeManipulation #SourceLaundering #InstitutionalManipulation #ForgedDocuments #FakeAudio #PoliticalInfluence #CovertInfluence #Peru #Ecuador #Bolivia #Argentina #Ukraine #Politology #LaCompania #TheCompany #SVR #WagnerLegacy #PropagandaMachine #GlobalSouth #BreakoutScale #OSINT #MediaManipulation #WRLD