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Political.org: 37 fake local news sites for Democrats got cited by ChatGPT in 19 test answers

Political.org reported Oct. 30 on a network of 37 sites of unknown origin, 10 posing as local news, promoting Democratic House candidates; all carry an llms.txt file. ChatGPT cited a network article in 19 test responses, 17 via a local-news-style site. Each query was run once. Google says it took action. OpenAI says it cites a range of sources.

HEAT
OUTLETS: 2
FIRST SEEN: Oct 31, 2026, 20:10 ET
LAST SIGNAL: 9h ago

Primary source

Political.orgpolitical.org/2026/10/30/network-of-37-websites-posing-as-local-news-promotes-democratic-house-candidates-gets-cited-by-chatgpt/

Coverage · 2 articles, oldest first

Saturday, October 31, 2026

20:10
The Washington Post
Tests: chatbots rely on three obscure AI-built voter sites for US midterm answers; Copilot cited the error-prone Ballot Brief in 75% of tests and ChatGPT in 22%
20:10
Political.org
political.org/2026/10/30/network-of-37-websites-posing-as-local-news-promotes-democratic-house-candidates-gets-cited-by-chatgpt/

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