Tal Hanan (; born in 1973), also known by his code name Jorge, is an Israeli businessman and former

special forces Special forces or special operations forces (SOF) are military units trained to conduct special operations. NATO has defined special operations as "military activities conducted by specially designated, organized, selected, trained and equip ...

operator who has been involved in

disinformation Disinformation is misleading content deliberately spread to deceive people, or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm. Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ strategic dece ...

campaigns in order to manipulate

election An election is a formal group decision-making process whereby a population chooses an individual or multiple individuals to hold Public administration, public office. Elections have been the usual mechanism by which modern representative d ...

s in several countries. Hanan's organisation Team Jorge has, for instance, attempted to influence the

2015 Nigerian general election General elections were held in Nigeria on 28 and 29 March 2015, the fifth quadrennial election to be held since the end of military rule in 1999. Voters elected the President and members to the House of Representatives and the Senate. The in ...

in collaboration with

Cambridge Analytica Cambridge Analytica Ltd. (CA), previously known as SCL USA, was a British political consulting firm that came to prominence through the Facebook–Cambridge Analytica data scandal. It was started in 2013, as a subsidiary of the private intell ...

. The group operate a software called

AIMS AIMS or Aims may refer to: Education * Acharya Institute of Management and Sciences, Bangalore, Karnataka, India * Adventist International Mission School, Muak Lek, Thailand * African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Cape Town, South Afri ...

for creating fake online accounts on social media networks and using them to spread

fake news Fake news or information disorder is false or misleading information (misinformation, disinformation, propaganda, and hoaxes) claiming the aesthetics and legitimacy of news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person ...

. Tal Hanan's operation was the subject of an undercover investigation conducted by journalists from ''

TheMarker ''TheMarker'' () is a Hebrew-language daily business newspaper published by the Haaretz Group in Israel. ''TheMarker'' was founded in 1999 by journalist and entrepreneur Guy Rolnik along with Haaretz Group and U.S.-based investors. Five years ...

'', ''

Radio France Radio France () is the French national public radio broadcaster. Stations Radio France offers seven national networks: *France Inter — Radio France's "generalist media, generalist" station, featuring entertaining and informative talk mixed wi ...

'', and ''

Haaretz ''Haaretz'' (; originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , , ) is an List of newspapers in Israel, Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel. The paper is published in Hebrew lan ...

'' in Israel working together with the journalism organization

Forbidden Stories Forbidden Stories is a Nonprofit organization, non-profit organization with the mission "to continue and publish the work of other journalists facing threats, prison, or murder." To achieve this, it allows journalists to send their work to Forbid ...

. It was then jointly reported in ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', ''

Le Monde (; ) is a mass media in France, French daily afternoon list of newspapers in France, newspaper. It is the main publication of Le Monde Group and reported an average print circulation, circulation of 480,000 copies per issue in 2022, including ...

'', ''Haaretz'', ''

Der Spiegel (, , stylized in all caps) is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. With a weekly circulation of about 724,000 copies in 2022, it is one of the largest such publications in Europe. It was founded in 1947 by John Seymour Chaloner ...

'' and others in February 2023. Hanan has denied any wrongdoing.

References

1973 births Living people Israeli businesspeople {{Israel-bio-stub

See also

References