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<span>Commentary<\/span> <\/a> <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p> Americans are learning to \u201ctrust the citations\u201d in AI-generated answers\u2014but AI doesn\u2019t reward credibility, it rewards access. <\/p>\n<p>  <br \/>\n<audio id=\"audio-player\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-tts-cdn.api.scpnewsgrp.com\/cyberscoop\/87442\/english.openai.mp3\"><\/audio> <\/p>\n<div readability=\"11\">\n<div>\n<p>Listen to this article<\/p>\n<p>  <\/p>\n<p>0:00<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>  <\/p>\n<p> <span id=\"tts-tooltip\">Learn more.<\/span> <span> This feature uses an automated voice, which may result in occasional errors in pronunciation, tone, or sentiment. <\/span> <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p>  <\/div>\n<div class=\"single-article__cover-wrap\">\n<figure class=\"single-article__cover\"> <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" fetchpriority=\"high\" width=\"640\" height=\"426\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence.jpg?resize=640%2C426&ssl=1\" class=\"single-article__cover-image wp-post-image\" alt decoding=\"async\" fetchpriority=\"high\" srcset=\"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg 5220w, https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg?resize=300,200 300w, https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg?resize=768,512 768w, https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg?resize=1024,683 1024w, https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg?resize=1536,1024 1536w, https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg?resize=2048,1365 2048w, https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg?resize=600,400 600w, https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg?resize=252,168 252w, https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg?resize=506,337 506w, https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg?resize=1013,675 1013w, https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-2.jpg?resize=1265,843 1265w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1013px) 100vw, 1013px\"><figcaption> (getty images) <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"single-article__content\">\n<div class=\"single-article__content-inner has-drop-cap\"> <html readability=\"45.328178694158\"><body readability=\"91.814578769169\"><\/p>\n<p>Americans are being taught to trust propaganda. Often, it\u2019s not intentional. A classic bit of advice for separating propaganda from real research is \u201cCheck the citations.\u201d If the sources support the analysis, the material can be trusted. But AI is changing the rules of the game.<\/p>\n<p>In December, the White House announced <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/M-26-04-Increasing-Public-Trust-in-Artificial-Intelligence-Through-Unbiased-AI-Principles-1.pdf\">new guidance<\/a> to ensure that AI tools procured for government use are \u201ctruthful\u201d and \u201cideologically neutral,\u201d including transparency around citation practices. But even with this new oversight there is a structural issue that the memo can\u2019t fix; authoritarian states are optimizing their propaganda for AI consumption while America\u2019s most credible news sources are actively blocking AI tools. This means that even ideologically neutral AI directs users towards state-aligned propaganda \u2014 simply because that is what is freely available.<\/p>\n<p>Those who trust AI citations wind up trusting propaganda while believing they are doing responsible research.<\/p>\n<p>Most large language models (LLMs) provide sources along with their analysis. But these models do not choose what sources to cite based on credibility. Rather, they choose based on availability. Many of the best sources, like top U.S. news outlets, are behind paywalls or are blocking the automated systems that AI uses to scan and collect information. These legacy media companies are slowly litigating and negotiating individual licensing deals with AI unicorns.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad ad--inline_1 \">\n<div class=\"ad__inner\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Advertisement<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>Authoritarian states, on the other hand, have optimized their content for accessibility. State-run media, like Qatar\u2019s Al Jazeera, or Russian and Chinese outlets published in English, are free. That results in students, academics and federal analysts seeking to understand Gaza, Ukraine, or Taiwan being more likely to engage with state-backed propaganda than independent journalism.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/airtable.com\/appsff5XIoqyQyPm9\/shrsOKoJzdye2kyTW\/tblfJmUT21Ipy3PAg\/viwgH1AhMAkn2hI68\">Research<\/a> from the Foundation for Defense of Democracies analyzing three major LLMs (ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini) found that 57 percent of responses to questions about current international conflicts cited state-aligned propaganda sources.<\/p>\n<p>When AI tools answer questions about contested conflicts \u2014 including Gaza, Ukraine, and Taiwan \u2014 they draw on enormous training data. While not perfect, the responses are often more nuanced than any one commentator or media outlet. But LLMs then funnel their hundreds of millions of users to a narrow subset of sources that it serves up as citations. FDD research found that 70 percent of neutral questions about the Israel-Gaza conflict yielded Al Jazeera citations.<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t a minor technical flaw \u2014 citations are the attribution architecture shaping what Americans learn to trust.<\/p>\n<p>While Western legacy media certainly carries its own biases, there is a crucial difference between editorial bias and state-controlled narratives. In 2024 alone, Russia-backed propaganda aggregator <a href=\"https:\/\/securingdemocracy.gmfus.org\/incident\/russia-exploits-ai-training-data-to-spread-propaganda-via-chatbots\/\">Pravda<\/a> flooded the internet with more than 3.6 million articles from pro-Kremlin influencers and government spokespeople, in order to saturate the space with pro-Russian narratives.<\/p>\n<div class=\"ad ad--inline_1 \">\n<div class=\"ad__inner\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Advertisement<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p>AI sometimes fabricates information, or \u201challucinate,\u201d and that presents real risks. But urging people to \u201ccheck the linked sources\u201d can end up steering them straight to state-controlled media. Those links aren\u2019t citations in the traditional sense \u2014 they are traffic directions. And the traffic they generate turns into revent, which ultimately determines which news outlets survive. AI platforms are becoming the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mckinsey.com\/capabilities\/growth-marketing-and-sales\/our-insights\/new-front-door-to-the-internet-winning-in-the-age-of-ai-search\">internet\u2019s traffic arbiters<\/a>, and right now they\u2019re systematically directing traffic away from independent journalism and toward state-controlled propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>AI companies must bring credible journalism into their systems. There is no question that quality journalism requires resources and revenue to survive. Unfortunately, the licensing deals that are being negotiated now between LLM companies and media outlets are moving slowly. Every delay allows citation patterns to harden while we are increasingly vulnerable to foreign influence.<\/p>\n<p>There\u2019s no silver bullet, but a patchwork of solutions can help. The White House has already taken a strong stance by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.whitehouse.gov\/presidential-actions\/2025\/07\/preventing-woke-ai-in-the-federal-government\/\">requiring<\/a> agency heads to restrict AI procurement to LLMs that are \u201cideological neutral\u201d and not \u201cin favor of ideological dogmas.\u201d Vendors selling to the U.S. government should present data on citation influence.<\/p>\n<p>An LLM literacy campaign is needed so users understand citation bias. But awareness alone isn\u2019t enough \u2014 AI companies should give lower priority to state-controlled media in their outputs and label them as such. And as LLMs evolve from being a consumer technology into a common infrastructure like the internet itself, citation patterns should be considered in AI safety frameworks \u2014 because a healthy democratic society needs a broad array of media sources, and that means independent journalism will always need support.<\/p>\n<p><em>Leah Siskind is director of impact and an AI research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><\/body> <\/p>\n<footer class=\"single-article__footer\" readability=\"1.0277777777778\">\n<div class=\"author-card\" readability=\"8\">\n<div class=\"author-card__avatar\">\n<figure class=\"author-card__image-wrap\"> <img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"author-card__image\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/ddi.mohflo.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence-1.jpg?w=640&ssl=1\" alt=\"Leah Siskind\"> <\/figure>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><h4 class=\"author-card__name\">Written by Leah Siskind<\/h4>\n<p> Leah Siskind is director of impact and an AI research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"single-article__tags-container\">\n<h4 class=\"single-article__tags-title\">In This Story<\/h4>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/footer>\n<p> <\/html><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<div class=\"single-article__ads js-single-article-sidebar\">\n<div class=\"ad ad--sidebar js-single-article-sidebar-5 ad--rightrail_1 \">\n<div class=\"ad__inner\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Advertisement<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ad ad--sidebar js-single-article-sidebar-4 ad--rightrail_2 \">\n<div class=\"ad__inner\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Advertisement<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"ad ad--sidebar js-single-article-sidebar-3 ad--rightrail_3 \">\n<div class=\"ad__inner\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Advertisement<\/span> <\/div>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/article>\n<div class=\"popular-stories 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{"id":8265,"date":"2026-01-15T08:30:55","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cyberscoop.com\/?p=87442"},"modified":"2026-01-15T08:30:55","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T14:30:55","slug":"the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ddi.mohflo.net\/index.php\/2026\/01\/15\/the-quiet-way-ai-normalizes-foreign-influence\/","title":{"rendered":"The quiet way AI normalizes foreign influence"},"content":{"rendered":"