Who is behind the Telegram channel that posts details of Israelis who protest against judicial reform? The channel that was exposed by National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, which posted the personal details of police officers, and which Israel Police said was operated by a foreign country, was deleted from the platform on Tuesday. Meanwhile, Fake Reporter, the new Israeli group dedicated to fighting disinformation hate speech, violence, and incitement online, exposed a second Telegram group it says is also operated by a foreign country, posting the personal details of anti-judicial reform protest activists.
According to Fake Reporter (Rolling in the Deep – An Iranian Cross-Platform Influence Operation), the operating patterns of the new channel, calling itself “The Hunters,” are identical to those of the “Trial of Traitors” channel that was just shut down, using mainly Telegram and WhatsApp groups. The “Hunters” admins display Israeli phone numbers which do not belong to Israeli citizens. Their Hebrew is terrible, and on occasion betrays an Arabic-translated source.
Oh, and the stated goal of both groups is to strengthen the unity and strength of the people of Israel, by attacking the other side.
According to the CEO of Fake Reporter, Ahya Schatz, the “Hunters” operators ask the members to identify protesters against the reform, and left-wing activists, and find out their personal details – to promote “a country without traitors,” and “confront the anarchists.”
Just like “Trial of Traitors,” the “Hunters” also mark targets for attacks by posting a picture of the victim, his or her name, and icons that reveal personal details such as a phone number or home address. This information is drawn from the Population Authority’s database, which was breached some twenty years ago when the personal details of registered Likud voters were leaked.
Both fake channels are familiar with the terminology of the two opposing camps and use their knowledge to create trust, followed by pushing more extreme content and activating members, according to Schatz. “Unfortunately, we see a sharp increase in these attempts in recent months and witness more such cases. The [anti-left] group even sent a form to users to collect their details.”
Schatz added that the two groups are part of one foreign influence operation, which Fake Reporter has been following in recent months.
“There is neglect here, and repeated failure of several systems,” he told Globes. “The worst is Twitter in the Elon Musk era, which stopped handling these cases despite reports on these channels and despite a pattern of operation that is very easy to identify and restrict.”
“But even the security authorities have not been able to do anything significant so far,” Schatz stressed. “Partly because of the government’s zero regulatory effort to promote protections for citizens online and inform about dangers.”
“Only the other day, the police issued its first announcement that foreign agents were behind [the channel that was shut down] to soften the blow for the Minister of National Security who fell into the trap of foreign agents,” Schatz noted. “Israeli society is under attack by networks of influence from home and abroad. Israeli citizens are abandoned by all the authorities that should be monitoring this, to the point where a minister entrusted with the security of the citizens falls prey to such a network – this spells criminal negligence. The false accusations still appear on Ben Gvir’s Twitter and Telegram accounts and continue to reach numerous groups and channels on the Internet.”
In January 2021, Fake Reporter revealed that opponents of the corona vaccine posted fake locations of “confinement facilities for vaccine refusers” on Waze. In February 2021, they revealed the activity of Facebook Corona deniers with about 16 thousand members who were spreading false information in Hebrew.
