Anthropic says it disrupts pro-Awami League 16-month disinformation campaign

US-based artificial intelligence company, Anthropic, has claimed that one person from Gaibandha used its Claude AI model to develop fabricated pro-Awami League news contents over the course of 16 months.

Some of the fake narratives also aligned with Indian geopolitical interests, Anthropic said in a report on the misuse of its technologies, published Thursday.

However, Anthropic could not find proof to link the disinformation operation to either Awami League or any Indian entity, it said in the report.

The operation generated at least 1,500 headlines, 300 false narratives and 1,500 prompts for creating images for social media dissemination targeting rural people.

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The content was intended to feed a continuous stream of broadcasts on Facebook Live, YouTube and TikTok, aimed at rural Awami League supporters whom the operator characterised as having limited literacy. Instructions called for “hot and aggressive” material, written simply enough “so even village people understand”, according to the report.

Targets of this fake-news operation included the Awami League’s rivals: the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, Jamaat-e-Islami, the National Citizens Committee, the interim government and student protest leaders. Fabricated stories portrayed opponents as foreign agents or advocates of Taliban-style rule, while others invented assassination plots, hit squads, financial corruption and secret political alliances, Anthropic said.

The production system required little human oversight once it was running. A custom program, named “fake_news_3.py”, connected directly to Claude and requested a fixed batch of material each time: 15 Bengali headlines, three detailed fabricated stories and 15 English-language prompts for generating accompanying images.

The output passed through cloud-storage folders and was converted into audio and video. A separate program automated bulk uploads to YouTube and scheduled publication in advance. The report said the uploader used a third-party software automation service to conceal the operator’s internet address.