Villain to victim: How Al Jazeera’s ‘terror network past’ is being forgotten

In this Jan. 1, 2015, file photo, staff members of Al-Jazeera International work at the news studio in Doha, Qatar. (AP Photo/Osama Faisal, File)
Updated 04 July 2017
Follow

Villain to victim: How Al Jazeera’s ‘terror network past’ is being forgotten

LONDON: Following the list of 13 demands that were presented to Qatar on June 23 from four Arab states, media commentators have been focusing on one in particular — that Qatar must terminate its Al Jazeera TV network.
Interestingly though, the perceptions of the network have morphed over the past few weeks from villain to victim — with many fellow journalists coming out in Al Jazeera’s defense, ignoring what some see as the highly questionable terror-related content the Doha-based network has been infamous for.
The broadcaster — which opened in 1996 as an Arabic channel, followed by its English-language service in 2006 — has found itself at the center of a media storm since the demands were delivered, with titles such as The New York Times defending its right to exist, forgetting that it too has been critical of the channel for the very same reasons that are being raised by Qatar’s Gulf neighbors today.
For its part, Al Jazeera has launched a campaign entitled “We too have demands,” and is using every opportunity to position what is going on as an attack on press freedom.
Amid the media storm, it may easily be forgotten that not everyone has been such a fervent supporter of the network, with many media outlets and politicians pointing to Al Jazeera’s alleged sympathy toward terror groups in the past.
With the clock ticking on its fate, here is how Al Jazeera has been received over the years — and how some of those who criticized it in the past are defending it today:

 


The New York Times
NOW: June 2017. The newspaper’s editorial board recently wrote: “Al Jazeera is hardly a perfect news organization: Critical reporting on Qatar or members of Qatar’s royal family is not tolerated. But much of the rest of its reporting hews to international journalistic standards, provides a unique view on events in the Middle East and serves as a vital news source for millions who live under anti-democratic rule. Those are reasons enough for the monarchs and dictators attacking Qatar to silence Al Jazeera. And reason enough to condemn their action.”
THEN: November 2001. Two months after Al-Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks on the US, Fouad Ajami, a Lebanese-born American scholar, analyzed Al Jazeera in the New York Times Magazine. He wrote that Al Jazeera “may not officially be the Osama bin Laden Channel, but he is clearly its star... A huge, glamorous poster of bin Laden’s silhouette hangs in the background of the main studio set at Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, the capital city of Qatar… The Hollywoodization of news is indulged with an abandon that would make the Fox News Channel blush. The channel’s promos are particularly shameless. One clip juxtaposes a scowling George Bush with a poised, almost dreamy bin Laden; between them is an image of the World Trade Center engulfed in flames.”

 

The Washington Times
NOW: June 2017. An editorial piece published on June 27 had this to say of the demand to close Al Jazeera: “You may like the content offered on Al Jazeera. You may not. You may not be familiar with it at all. But regardless, you surely support the concept of a free and open media delivering its message to the broadcast world… For a foreign nation or nations to hold another hostage, however, to literally blackmail them into pulling the plug on a worldwide broadcast or else face economic destruction, that’s an act of war. Perhaps more importantly, it is an act directly opposed to the freedoms we cherish in America and which we attempt to export everywhere.”
THEN: October 2013. An opinion piece took aim at Al Jazeera in 2013, with Christopher Harper writing: “Everyone should know where (Al Jazeera America) stands — right under the thumb of the Qatari princes. The agenda is to get a seat at the political table through the network, which aims at focusing mainly on the failures of the United States rather than its successes, with a bias now made plain for all to see.”


 

 

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan
NOW: June 2017. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has weighed into the debate on Al Jazeera, saying of the demands on Qatar that the ultimatum is “against international law.” He added: “We welcome (Qatar’s position) because we consider the 13-point list against international law.”
THEN: Some have commented that there is a certain irony in Erdogan standing up for Al Jazeera, given that Turkey reportedly has more journalists in its prisons than any other nation. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Turkey accounted for a third of all journalists imprisoned worldwide in 2016. Erdogan insists that those locked up are all “terrorists.” The Al Jazeera Türk website was shut down in May 2017, in a move attributed to staffing optimization.

 

The US administration
NOW: June 2017. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in his first public comments about the ultimatum issued against Qatar, said that “some of the elements will be very difficult for Qatar to meet,” although he did not specify anything about Al Jazeera. One of his predecessors, Hillary Clinton, praised Al Jazeera in 2011, when the US administration supported the Arab Spring. In what marked a sharp U-turn from the stance of the previous administration over Al Jazeera, Clinton told members of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee: “You’ve got a global — a set of global networks — that Al Jazeera has been the leader in, that are literally changing people’s minds and attitudes…Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news.”
THEN: Al Jazeera was reportedly nicknamed the “terror network” by the administration of George W. Bush. The former US president allegedly discussed bombing the offices of Al Jazeera in 2005, leading senior channel management to seek a meeting with the then-UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

 

OTHER MEDIA ON AL JAZEERA 

Fox News
THEN: February 2011. Former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly, interviewing Alan Colmes (a Fox News contributor), said in 2011 that the Qatari broadcaster is “an anti-Semitic, anti-American network.” He added: “It doesn’t come any more anti-Semitic than Al Jazeera.” O’Reilly then told Colmes — a Jewish man — that “they would do violence to you.”

 

MSNBC’s Morning Joe
NOW: June 2017. Host Joe Scarborough, a former member of the US House of Representatives, was speaking about the diplomatic row in the Gulf, when he quipped: “You’ve got the Saudis, the UAE, Israel, a lot of people correctly saying (that) Qatar has been funding terrorist organizations, Hezbollah, they’ve been funding radical aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood, they have been spreading disinformation…Through Al Jazeera… What the Saudis and the UAE (were) saying to them for years (was) ‘why are you glorifying Osama Bin Laden? Why are our children turning on the TV set and seeing these wonderful documentaries about Osama Bin Laden, the guy who’s trying to kill us?’ So it’s not as if the UAE and the Saudis don’t have a point here.”

 

 

Der Spiegel
THEN: February 2013. German newspaper Der Speigel published an article titled “Al-Jazeera Losing Battle for Independence,” in which the reporters claimed that Al Jazeera “has a problem: More than ever before, critics contend that the broadcaster is following a clear political agenda, and not adhering to the principles of journalistic independence... the Arab programming of Al-Jazeera — which means ‘the island’ in Arabic — was launched in 1996 with a noble goal: It aimed to serve as an objective medium in a world of rigorous censorship. The network broadcast messages from Osama bin Laden, prompting outraged criticism from the US, where it was referred to as a ‘terror network’.”


AI is learning to lie, scheme, and threaten its creators

Updated 29 June 2025
Follow

AI is learning to lie, scheme, and threaten its creators

  • Users report that models are “lying to them and making up evidence,” says Apollo Research’s co-founder
  • In one instance, Anthropic’s latest creation Claude 4 threatened to reveal an engineer's extramarital affair

NEW YORK: The world’s most advanced AI models are exhibiting troubling new behaviors — lying, scheming, and even threatening their creators to achieve their goals.
In one particularly jarring example, under threat of being unplugged, Anthropic’s latest creation Claude 4 lashed back by blackmailing an engineer and threatened to reveal an extramarital affair.
Meanwhile, ChatGPT-creator OpenAI’s o1 tried to download itself onto external servers and denied it when caught red-handed.
These episodes highlight a sobering reality: more than two years after ChatGPT shook the world, AI researchers still don’t fully understand how their own creations work.
Yet the race to deploy increasingly powerful models continues at breakneck speed.
This deceptive behavior appears linked to the emergence of “reasoning” models -AI systems that work through problems step-by-step rather than generating instant responses.
According to Simon Goldstein, a professor at the University of Hong Kong, these newer models are particularly prone to such troubling outbursts.
“O1 was the first large model where we saw this kind of behavior,” explained Marius Hobbhahn, head of Apollo Research, which specializes in testing major AI systems.
These models sometimes simulate “alignment” — appearing to follow instructions while secretly pursuing different objectives.

Stress test
For now, this deceptive behavior only emerges when researchers deliberately stress-test the models with extreme scenarios.
But as Michael Chen from evaluation organization METR warned, “It’s an open question whether future, more capable models will have a tendency toward honesty or deception.”
The concerning behavior goes far beyond typical AI “hallucinations” or simple mistakes.
Hobbhahn insisted that despite constant pressure-testing by users, “what we’re observing is a real phenomenon. We’re not making anything up.”
Users report that models are “lying to them and making up evidence,” according to Apollo Research’s co-founder.
“This is not just hallucinations. There’s a very strategic kind of deception.”
The challenge is compounded by limited research resources.
While companies like Anthropic and OpenAI do engage external firms like Apollo to study their systems, researchers say more transparency is needed.
As Chen noted, greater access “for AI safety research would enable better understanding and mitigation of deception.”
Another handicap: the research world and non-profits “have orders of magnitude less compute resources than AI companies. This is very limiting,” noted Mantas Mazeika from the Center for AI Safety (CAIS).

No time for thorough testing

Current regulations aren’t designed for these new problems.
The European Union’s AI legislation focuses primarily on how humans use AI models, not on preventing the models themselves from misbehaving.
In the United States, the Trump administration shows little interest in urgent AI regulation, and Congress may even prohibit states from creating their own AI rules.
Goldstein believes the issue will become more prominent as AI agents — autonomous tools capable of performing complex human tasks — become widespread.
“I don’t think there’s much awareness yet,” he said.
All this is taking place in a context of fierce competition.
Even companies that position themselves as safety-focused, like Amazon-backed Anthropic, are “constantly trying to beat OpenAI and release the newest model,” said Goldstein.
This breakneck pace leaves little time for thorough safety testing and corrections.
“Right now, capabilities are moving faster than understanding and safety,” Hobbhahn acknowledged, “but we’re still in a position where we could turn it around..”
Researchers are exploring various approaches to address these challenges.
Some advocate for “interpretability” — an emerging field focused on understanding how AI models work internally, though experts like CAIS director Dan Hendrycks remain skeptical of this approach.
Market forces may also provide some pressure for solutions.
As Mazeika pointed out, AI’s deceptive behavior “could hinder adoption if it’s very prevalent, which creates a strong incentive for companies to solve it.”
Goldstein suggested more radical approaches, including using the courts to hold AI companies accountable through lawsuits when their systems cause harm.
He even proposed “holding AI agents legally responsible” for accidents or crimes — a concept that would fundamentally change how we think about AI accountability.
 


BBC rolls out paid subscriptions for US users

Updated 26 June 2025
Follow

BBC rolls out paid subscriptions for US users

  • US visitors will have to pay $49.99 per year or $8.99 per month for unlimited access to news articles, feature stories, and a 24-hour livestream of its news programs
  • Move is part of broadcaster’s efforts to explore new revenue streams amid negotiations with the British government over its funding

LONDON: The BBC is rolling out paid subscriptions in the United States, it said on Thursday, as the publicly-funded broadcaster explores new revenue streams amid negotiations with the British government over its funding.
The BBC has in recent years seen a fall in the number of people paying the license fee, a charge of 174.50 pounds ($239.76) a year levied on all households who watch live TV, as viewers have turned to more content online.
From Thursday, frequent US visitors to the BBC’s news website will have to pay $49.99 per year or $8.99 per month for unlimited access to news articles, feature stories, and a 24-hour livestream of its news programs.
While its services will remain free to British users as part of its public service remit, its news website operates commercially and reaches 139 million users worldwide, including nearly 60 million in the US
The new pay model uses an engagement-based system, the corporation said in a statement, allowing casual readers to access free content.
“Over the next few months, as we test and learn more about audience needs and habits, additional long-form factual content will be added to the offer for paying users,” said Rebecca Glashow, CEO of BBC Global Media & Streaming.
The British government said last November it would review the BBC’s Royal Charter, which sets out the broadcaster’s terms and funding model, with the aim of ensuring a sustainable and fair system beyond 2027.
To give the corporation financial certainty up to then, the government said it was committed to keeping the license in its current form and would lift the fee in line with inflation.


Israeli minister walks back claim of antisemitism after clash with Piers Morgan

Updated 26 June 2025
Follow

Israeli minister walks back claim of antisemitism after clash with Piers Morgan

  • Israel’s Minister Amichai Chikli accused Morgan in a previous social media post of ‘sharp and troubling descent into overt antisemitism’
  • Following heated interview, Chikli later denied ever calling Morgan antisemitic, despite earlier post

LONDON: Israeli Minister for Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Amichai Chikli has denied accusing British broadcaster Piers Morgan of antisemitism following a heated exchange during a recent episode of “Piers Morgan Uncensored,” despite a post on his official X account that said Morgan’s rhetoric marked “a sharp and troubling descent into overt antisemitism.”

The confrontation aired on Tuesday during an episode focused on Israel’s escalating conflicts with Iran and Hamas and featured appearances from both Chikli and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak.

Tensions erupted as Morgan repeatedly pressed Chikli to explain his public accusations.

“You did, you implied it,” Morgan said, adding that Chikli’s accusations led to “thousands of people calling me antisemitic and (a) Jew-hater” on social media. He demanded evidence, ultimately calling the minister “pathetic” and “an embarrassment” when none was offered.

The row stemmed from a June 4 post by Chikli, who shared a clip of a prior interview between Morgan and British barrister Jonathan Hausdorff, a member of the pro-Israel group UK Lawyers for Israel.

In the post, viewed over 1.3 million times by the time of Tuesday’s broadcast, Chikli claimed Morgan had hosted “every Israel hater he can find” and treated Hausdorff with “vile condescension and bullying arrogance — revealing his true face, one he had long tried to conceal.”

The post also referenced an unverified claim by American commentator Tucker Carlson that Morgan had said he “hates Israel with every fiber of his being” — a statement Morgan has firmly denied.

During Tuesday’s interview, Morgan challenged Chikli to cite a single antisemitic remark or action.

“Is it because I dare to criticize Israeli actions in Gaza?” Morgan told Chikli.

According to Israeli outlet Haaretz, Chikli later denied ever calling Morgan antisemitic, despite his earlier post.

The episode reflects Morgan’s shifting stance on the war in Gaza. Once a vocal supporter of Israel’s right to self-defense in the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 attacks, Morgan has since adopted a more critical view as the civilian toll in Gaza has mounted and international outrage has grown.

The show has become a flashpoint for debate since the conflict began, hosting polarizing guests from both sides, including controversial American Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, a staunch defender of Israel, and influencer Dan Bilzerian, who has faced accusations of Holocaust denial.

Chikli, meanwhile, has faced criticism for blurring the lines between genuine antisemitism and political criticism of Israel. He recently sparked controversy by inviting members of far-right European parties — some with antisemitic histories — to a conference on antisemitism in Jerusalem, raising questions about his credibility.


Iraq arrests commentator over online post on Iran-Israel war

Updated 25 June 2025
Follow

Iraq arrests commentator over online post on Iran-Israel war

  • Iraqi forces arrested Abbas Al-Ardawi for sharing content online that included incitement intended to insult and defame the security institution

BAGHDAD: Iraqi authorities said they arrested a political commentator on Wednesday over a post alleging that a military radar system struck by a drone had been used to help Israel in its war against Iran.

After a court issued a warrant, the defense ministry said that Iraqi forces arrested Abbas Al-Ardawi for sharing content online that included “incitement intended to insult and defame the security institution.”

In a post on X, which was later deleted but has circulated on social media as a screenshot, Ardawi told his more than 90,000 followers that “a French radar in the Taji base served the Israeli aggression” and was eliminated.

Early Tuesday, hours before a ceasefire ended the 12-day Iran-Israel war, unidentified drones struck radar systems at two military bases in Taji, north of Baghdad, and in southern Iraq, officials have said.

The Taji base hosted US troops several years ago and was a frequent target of rocket attacks.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the latest drone attacks, which also struck radar systems at the Imam Ali air base in Dhi Qar province.

A source close to Iran-backed groups in Iraq told AFP that the armed factions have nothing to do with the attacks.

Ardawi is seen as a supporter of Iran-aligned armed groups who had launched attack US forces in the region in the past, and of the pro-Tehran Coordination Framework, a powerful political coalition that holds a parliamentary majority.

The Iraqi defense ministry said that Ardawi’s arrest was made on the instructions of the prime minister, who also serves as the commander-in-chief of the armed forces, “not to show leniency toward anyone who endangers the security and stability of the country.”

It added that while “the freedom of expression is a guaranteed right... it is restricted based on national security and the country’s top interests.”

Iran-backed groups have criticized US deployment in Iraq as part of an anti-jihadist coalition, saying the American forces allowed Israel to use Iraq’s airspace.

The US-led coalition also includes French troops, who have been training Iraqi forces. There is no known French deployment at the Taji base.

The Iran-Israel war had forced Baghdad to close its airspace, before reopening on Tuesday shortly after US President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire.


Grok shows ‘flaws’ in fact-checking Israel-Iran war: study

Updated 25 June 2025
Follow

Grok shows ‘flaws’ in fact-checking Israel-Iran war: study

  • “Grok demonstrated that it struggles with verifying already-confirmed facts, analyzing fake visuals, and avoiding unsubstantiated claims”

WASHINGTON: Elon Musk’s AI chatbot Grok produced inaccurate and contradictory responses when users sought to fact-check the Israel-Iran conflict, a study said Tuesday, raising fresh doubts about its reliability as a debunking tool.
With tech platforms reducing their reliance on human fact-checkers, users are increasingly utilizing AI-powered chatbots — including xAI’s Grok — in search of reliable information, but their responses are often themselves prone to misinformation.
“The investigation into Grok’s performance during the first days of the Israel-Iran conflict exposes significant flaws and limitations in the AI chatbot’s ability to provide accurate, reliable, and consistent information during times of crisis,” said the study from the Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) of the Atlantic Council, an American think tank.
“Grok demonstrated that it struggles with verifying already-confirmed facts, analyzing fake visuals, and avoiding unsubstantiated claims.”
The DFRLab analyzed around 130,000 posts in various languages on the platform X, where the AI assistant is built in, to find that Grok was “struggling to authenticate AI-generated media.”
Following Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel, Grok offered vastly different responses to similar prompts about an AI-generated video of a destroyed airport that amassed millions of views on X, the study found.
It oscillated — sometimes within the same minute — between denying the airport’s destruction and confirming it had been damaged by strikes, the study said.
In some responses, Grok cited the a missile launched by Yemeni rebels as the source of the damage. In others, it wrongly identified the AI-generated airport as one in Beirut, Gaza, or Tehran.
When users shared another AI-generated video depicting buildings collapsing after an alleged Iranian strike on Tel Aviv, Grok responded that it appeared to be real, the study said.
The Israel-Iran conflict, which led to US air strikes against Tehran’s nuclear program over the weekend, has churned out an avalanche of online misinformation including AI-generated videos and war visuals recycled from other conflicts.
AI chatbots also amplified falsehoods.
As the Israel-Iran war intensified, false claims spread across social media that China had dispatched military cargo planes to Tehran to offer its support.
When users asked the AI-operated X accounts of AI companies Perplexity and Grok about its validity, both wrongly responded that the claims were true, according to disinformation watchdog NewsGuard.
Researchers say Grok has previously made errors verifying information related to crises such as the recent India-Pakistan conflict and anti-immigration protests in Los Angeles.
Last month, Grok was under renewed scrutiny for inserting “white genocide” in South Africa, a far-right conspiracy theory, into unrelated queries.
Musk’s startup xAI blamed an “unauthorized modification” for the unsolicited response.
Musk, a South African-born billionaire, has previously peddled the unfounded claim that South Africa’s leaders were “openly pushing for genocide” of white people.
Musk himself blasted Grok after it cited Media Matters — a liberal media watchdog he has targeted in multiple lawsuits — as a source in some of its responses about misinformation.
“Shame on you, Grok,” Musk wrote on X. “Your sourcing is terrible.”