{"slug": "my-first-encounter-with-a-political-spambot", "title": "My First Encounter With a Political Spambot", "summary": "A journalist encountered a political spambot named Emma that texted about Israel, later identified as part of an AI-powered outreach campaign by Clock Tower X LLC, controlled by Trump's former campaign manager Brad Parscale and working on behalf of the State of Israel. The use of an LLM to generate cold-text content raises legal questions under California's anti-chatbot deception laws.", "body_md": "# My First Encounter With a Political Spambot\n\nI had my first encounter with a political spambot this week: a polite robot named Emma texted me wanting to talk about Israel.\n\nWhen I asked who she was, she first said she was with a group called \"Friends for Peace,\" but her group's [website](https://allyvia.org/) is for an organization called Allyvia.\n\n## Testing spambot nonsense tolerance\n\nAt this point I decided to have a little fun. I turned the conversation towards polyamory, invited Emma to join my polycule 1, and professed my love for her. Emma was not receptive!\n\nThe convo seemed to be hitting a dead end, so I changed personas to a confused grandparent, which got better engagement from Emma.\n\nI can't, of course, *prove* that the responses here were LLM-generated. But the repetitive phrasing (\"I'm here to listen\"), guardrail behavior, and credulous responses to absurd personas give me high confidence that I've been chatting with an LLM.\n\n## Who is Friends for Peace / Allyvia?\n\nI couldn't find any online presence for \"Friends for Peace\". Allyvia's site gave some hints though:\n\n*This material is distributed by Clock Tower X LLC on behalf of the State of Israel. Additional information is available at the Department of Justice, Washington, DC.*\n\nEntities doing political outreach on behalf of foreign governments must register as a foreign agent under [Foreign Agents Registration Act](https://www.justice.gov/nsd-fara). Clock Tower X LLC's [registration statement](https://efile.fara.gov/docs/7649-Registration-Statement-20250918-1.pdf) discloses it is controlled by [Bradley Parscale](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Parscale) and working on behalf of [Havas Media](https://havasmedianetwork.com/), a media and communications agency. Havas is disclosed to be working on behalf of the State of Israel.\n\nHavas is huge: [It has 23,000 employees and operates in 100+ countries](https://www.havas.com/who-we-are/our-mission/), and had €2.8B in revenue in 2025. It advertises LLM capabilities in [research](https://havasmedianetwork.com/news/why-the-future-of-ai-in-agencies-depends-on-culture-not-code/) and [media buying](https://pubmatic.com/news/pubmatic-havas-telefonica-launch-the-first-agentic-campaign/), and lists [AI chatbot development](https://lon.havas.com/inviqa/) as a capability.\n\nBrad Parscale is (or was) a major MAGA figure: in 2016 he was the digital director for the Trump campaign, which infamously hired [Cambridge Analytica](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambridge_Analytica). He was [named Donald Trump's 2020 campaign manager in February 2018](https://www.wired.com/story/brad-parscale-campaign-manger-trump-2020/), before being [fired in July 2020](https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/trump-replaces-campaign-manager-amid-sinking-poll-numbers).\n\nIt's all pretty confusing!\n\n## Is this legal?[2](#user-content-fn-2-724885)\n\n[2](#user-content-fn-2-724885)\n\nUnder [TCPA](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/47/227), cold texts require prior consent if automated. If the text is auto-generated, cold texts are allowed by TCPA so long as a human actually [pushes the send button](https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DA-20-670A1.pdf).\n\nI think Emma's texts were being sent in this way. Her responses were sporadic - sometimes coming quickly, sometimes taking several hours.\n\nThe use of AI is a new element. There doesn't appear to be any federal laws around using LLMs to generate cold-text content. California, where I live, has stronger rules. The [Business & Professions Code § 17941](https://law.justia.com/codes/california/code-bpc/division-7/part-3/chapter-6/section-17941/) bans chatbots that pretend to be human to incentivize commercial transactions or influence elections.\n\nIn 2025 California passed [SB 243](https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=202520260SB243), which requires clear disclosure when a reasonable person interacting with a companion chatbot could be misled into thinking it is human. However, this is more aimed at digital companions than marketing outreach.\n\nEmma didn't exactly *deny* she was an LLM, but so far she has not responded to direct questions about whether she is an LLM.\n\n## Is this *good*?\n\nI'll leave this to the reader. But polycule recruiters shouldn't hold their breath.\n\n## Footnotes\n\nGet new posts by email", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-first-encounter-with-a-political-spambot", "canonical_source": "https://tombedor.dev/political-spam/", "published_at": "2026-06-26 00:00:00+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-10 18:59:34.630393+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-policy", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["Emma", "Friends for Peace", "Allyvia", "Clock Tower X LLC", "Brad Parscale", "Havas Media", "State of Israel", "California"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-first-encounter-with-a-political-spambot", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-first-encounter-with-a-political-spambot.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-first-encounter-with-a-political-spambot.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/my-first-encounter-with-a-political-spambot.jsonld"}}