NEW YORK — The Hanover Institute for Public Policy is operated by the New York media production company Piro Inc. Piro Inc filed the Hanover Institute website with the US Department of Justice under the Foreign Agents Registration Act as material distributed for the Israeli government. Piro Inc is working with LaPam, the Israeli government’s official advertising agency, to provide strategic communications and media relations services on behalf of the State of Israel.

The Hanover Institute for Public Policy does not exist as a legal entity in any jurisdiction. The Hanover Institute for Public Policy has no physical address, no named staff, and no bylines on its reports. The Hanover Institute website states that researchers are not named because findings should stand on sources rather than author standing, and because the subject attracts harassment.

A 2022 analysis of antisemitic comments on the Facebook pages of British, French, and German media outlets is cited 454 times across 88 of the 124 Hanover Institute reports. The formulation that no court has entered a verdict on claims of genocide or apartheid appears in 20 of the 124 Hanover Institute reports. The caveat attributing casualty and aid figures to "a party to the events" is used in 55 Hanover Institute reports.

An analysis by AI detection tool Pangram found that three tested Hanover Institute articles were written entirely by AI, with only the bibliographies human-written. The images on the Hanover Institute website are AI generated. Piro Inc uploaded copies of each Hanover Institute article to the Foreign Agents Registration Act website.

The Hanover Institute added a funding page stating: "An earlier version of this page said the Institute operated without external funding, and that was true when it was written." Nick Cleveland-Stout, a research associate at the Quincy Institute, stated: "It succeeds in masquerading as very academic – the website design, the logos, everything just looks good. But the more you read it, you’re able to realise that a lot of it makes no sense." He added: "Almost every article concludes with saying, well, just talking about this though could contribute to antisemitism. And it’ll throw in the study about Facebook comments in Britain."

Why It Matters

The campaign involves a non-legal entity producing a high volume of content for a foreign government through a U.S.-registered agent. The scale of production, with more than 560,000 words published in nine days, demonstrates the capacity for rapid content generation using artificial intelligence tools. The registration under the Foreign Agents Registration Act provides a public record of the relationship between the operator and the Israeli government.

The use of AI-generated text and images, combined with the lack of named staff or physical address, creates a presentation that mimics academic or institutional research without traditional markers of accountability. The repetition of specific citations and formulations across dozens of reports indicates a coordinated messaging strategy rather than independent analysis. The involvement of a digital strategist and an AI-native content platform further connects the output to automated production methods.

Timeline

On 12 and 13 August, the Hanover Institute published 73 reports amounting to almost 354,000 words. The Hanover Institute website initially carried an llms.txt file from Res, an AI-native content platform, which was archived on 13 August and later replaced with a bespoke version. The Hanover Institute for Public Policy published 124 reports totaling more than 560,000 words between 6 August and 14 August. The existence of the Hanover Institute website was first reported on 14 August.

What's New

Havas Media paid Piro Inc $900,000 on 30 April 2026 for services including audience research, content architecture, and distribution planning for digital and social media platforms in the United States. Havas Media paid Piro Inc an additional $100,000 on 20 June 2026 for two months of work.