Yeah it's an interesting article because on the one hand, PR firm doing PR and that doesn't seem very newsworthy. On the other hand, there is an extremely good case that the firms doing PR in French elections should be French PR firms and responsive to French law enforcement. Ditto Scotland and New York. I can't find an angle where it looks like a good idea to tolerate well organised and financed foreign guns for hire getting involved in a local election.

Although I do think throwing "pro-Palestine" in is a cheap insinuation. Pretty much everyone is against genocide. It doesn't tell us much about why they might be targeted for a smear campaign.

It's only a while until social media could be turned off before elections if not outright banned. It only free speech for AI bots and psyops campagins. Actual voices get drowned in a sea of slop and propaganda.

The main use case the governments around the world have for the investment in LLMs is being able to attack other countries and their own citizens with these kinds of campaigns.

They worked to influence elective when they were barely researched, had little evidence, and were done by small teams who can barely speak the language. To dismiss these kinds of campaigns come across as either ignorant of the past 15 years or a disingenuous dismissal.