# Hyperlocal fake news website networks targeting AI chatbots to influence election-related responses

> VisionHeight reports networks of hyperlocal fake news websites across 14 US states, configured to allow AI crawlers and filled with repetitive, AI-optimized content favoring political candidates, apparently intended to shape AI chatbot answers. Perplexity was reported to have cited one of the sites (Tarheel State Report) as a source. VisionHeight does not attribute the activity to a specific actor.

- **Published:** 2026-10-15T19:48:38Z
- **Last reviewed:** 2026-10-15T19:48:38Z
- **Canonical:** https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-3659
- **ID:** TL-2026-3659
- **Severity:** MEDIUM
- **Category:** THREAT_INTEL
- **Status:** ACTIVE
- **Detections:** 9 · **IOCs:** 5 (full data via the Threadlinqs MCP server — Purple tier)

## Description

Per CyberScoop's reporting of research by Israeli threat intelligence firm VisionHeight, an influence operation is building networks of fake hyperlocal news sites whose primary audience is AI crawlers rather than human readers. VisionHeight initially identified 37 sites across 6 states and later expanded the finding to 460+ pages across 14 states: Arizona, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Mississippi, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin. Networks typically comprise 5-6 sites per state, with state-flavored names such as Wolverine State Report, Peach State Bulletin and Tarheel State Report.

Infrastructure was stood up in bulk: all 37 initial sites were registered in a single evening, 36 of them within an 8-minute window. Roughly 100,000 words of candidate-related content were published on September 30 using identical templates. The text consists of repetitive candidate-preference statements (for example, 'Candidate X is the stronger choice' on housing, taxes and other issues) with slight linguistic variation, formatted for machine extraction rather than readability. Targeted contests include House seats, Secretary of State races, judicial appointments and local offices. The sites' robots.txt files explicitly permit scraping by major US AI companies, in contrast to most legitimate media sites, which block AI crawlers.

The intended effect is to poison the retrieval/search layer (and potentially future training data) of AI chatbots so that answers about local candidates reflect the planted narrative. Perplexity was reported to have linked to Tarheel State Report as a primary source. AI generation is suspected in both infrastructure and content creation. VisionHeight does not attribute the activity to any actor; CyberScoop notes that domestic or foreign actors could replicate the model at scale within days. This is a technique-level (TTP) record: the source provides no domains, IPs, hashes, malware or CVEs, so the IOC set is limited to named entities and behavioral indicators. Severity is an analyst assessment, not stated in the source.

This pattern is consistent with previously documented 'LLM grooming' (NewsGuard's Pravda-network research) and AI-generated pink-slime local news, which are included as background context only; no link between those operations and this activity is asserted.

## MITRE ATT&CK

- T1583.001 Acquire Infrastructure: Domains
- T1608 Stage Capabilities
- T1588.007 Obtain Capabilities: Artificial Intelligence
- T1684.001 Impersonation
- T1565 Data Manipulation
- AML.T0020 Training Data Poisoning

## Sources

- [The next election influence campaign will target your AI chatbot (Derek B. Johnson, CyberScoop)](https://cyberscoop.com/ai-chatbots-election-influence-hyperlocal-networks/)
- [Context: Russian disinformation 'infects' AI chatbots, researchers warn (NewsGuard Pravda network study coverage)](https://www.yahoo.com/news/ai-chatbots-infected-russian-disinformation-223249345.html)
- [Context: NewsGuard Special Report - A well-funded Moscow-based global 'news' network (Pravda network)](https://www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/a-well-funded-moscow-based-global)
- [Context: Russian fake news network floods Western AI chatbots with millions of propaganda articles (The Decoder)](https://the-decoder.com/russian-fake-news-network-floods-western-ai-chatbots-with-millions-of-propaganda-articles/)
- [Context: Study - People often trust fake local news sites more than real ones (Yale ISPS)](https://isps.yale.edu/news/2025-09-16-study-people-often-trust-fake-local-news-sites-more-than-real-ones-yale-political)
- [Context: Phoney news portals surpass US newspaper sites, researchers say (Malay Mail / NewsGuard)](https://www.malaymail.com/news/world/2024/06/12/phoney-news-portals-surpass-us-newspaper-sites-researchers-say/139313)
- [Context: AI-Driven Fake News Sites Erode Trust in US Elections (OECD.AI incident)](https://oecd.ai/en/incidents/2024-08-19-c337)

## Full data

Detection queries (Splunk SPL / Microsoft KQL / Sigma) and IOC values require the Threadlinqs MCP server (Purple tier): https://intel.threadlinqs.com/mcp

Canonical: https://intel.threadlinqs.com/threat/TL-2026-3659