Netanyahu's press advisor created a secret media monitoring system with artificial intelligence

It was revealed that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's press advisor Yonatan Urich created a special system for the Prime Minister and his wife, Sara Netanyahu, by scanning media outlets every 90 seconds with the artificial intelligence model Claude and instantly reporting news about the couple via WhatsApp.

In the news of Haaretz newspaper, Urich was exposed when he left the source codes of the system, which monitors the shares of certain politicians and parties, as well as press organizations, publicly accessible on the internet.

According to the news, approximately 50 news sources, ranked by importance, are scanned through the system every 90 seconds, and then instant notifications are sent to two specially established WhatsApp groups. Only news about Sara Netanyahu is directed to one group, and news about the Prime Minister and the Likud Party is directed to the other.

HE FORGOT PUBLIC ACCESS TO HIS ACCOUNT

It was revealed by Haaretz that Urich, who uploaded the tracking system to OpenAI's software repository "GitHub", left the code public instead of restricting access to his account.

It was reported that the gap in the system was closed upon the questions the newspaper posed to the Prime Minister's Office regarding the issue.

It was observed that the current version of the tracking system has been working uninterruptedly since September 1 and has performed over 19 thousand scans.

ORGANIZATIONS THAT NETANYAHU FOLLOWS CLOSELY ARE REVEALED

The system also revealed which channels and newspapers were closely followed in the press briefings presented to Prime Minister Netanyahu.

While the system accepts Israel's leading journalists and commentators as direct news sources, Amit Segal, Channel 12, Ynet, Mako and Kan 11 were at the top of the importance index.

Urich wrote to the system about the names in question: "Their statements are direct news items; therefore, even if the event is announced elsewhere, each mention of them should be sent separately." It was determined that he created the instruction.

Names and press organizations such as Haaretz, Channel 13, Dafna Liel and Michael Shemesh remained in the second most important category followed by the system.

It was noteworthy that channels such as Channel 14, Hamoked and Yinon News, which support Netanyahu, were ranked lower in the system.

It was also seen that Urich instructed the monitoring system not to follow the political news of Channel 14 reporters.

THIS IS HOW "KATARGATE" WAS EXPOSED

The scandal, which emerged when the press monitoring system was left unencrypted and accessible, reminded the public of the leak caused by Urich two years ago, known as the "Qatargate" scandal, in which some people in Netanyahu's close circle were "accused of secretly receiving money from Doha to do image work for Qatar."

Documents regarding Qatar's pre-World Cup image campaign were also leaked using the same method.

Netanyahu's press advisor Yonatan Urich is being tried for "harming national security" in the case about the "leak of secret documents" in November 2024, on charges that he leaked secret documents of the army to German Bild and UK-based newspapers The Jewish Cronicle without permission.