Jewish Onliner: AI-powered site that resulted in pro-Palestine Yale scholar's suspension addresses criticism

Helyeh Doutaghi was accused by Jewish Onliner of involvement with Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, designated by US as 'international fundraiser' for PFLP group

Helyeh Doutaghi, a Yale Law School scholar, claims she was wrongly suspended due to allegations made by an 'AI empowered' website, JewishOnliner. Photo: Helyeh Doutaghi

A scholar of international law is continuing her fight against Yale University following a suspension she said was prompted by website Jewish Onliner, which uses artificial intelligence to expose "anti-Israel movements”.

The site claimed Helyeh Doutaghi was connected to the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, which the US Treasury Department in 2024 designated a “sham charity” and an “international fundraiser for the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist organisation”.

In a statement posted to X, Ms Doutaghi called the report untrue and said Jewish Onliner was using AI as a weapon “to target students, faculty and organisers who dare to speak out against genocide, systemic starvation and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians”.

She also said Jewish Onliner's report falsely accused her of being a terrorist.

A petition calling on Yale University to reinstate Ms Doutaghi has so far received more than 1,100 signatures and she has retained legal counsel amid the suspension.

Not much is known about the origins of Jewish Onliner, and efforts to learn about the owner of the site through the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (Icann) do not yield many results.

According to Icann, the registrant contact information listed for the site is Perfect Privacy LLC, a VPN provider. The URL is privately registered through the limited liability company with a mailing address in Jacksonville, Florida. The site was registered on December 12, 2024.

Jewish Onliner describes itself as “your online hub for insights, investigations, data and exposes about issues impacting the Jewish community. Empowered by AI capabilities". Stories on the site often lack by-lines and there is an emphasis on anonymity.

"The reason for the anonymity is pretty straightforward – and unfortunately necessary in today’s climate, where anti-Semitism has reached truly disturbing levels,” Jewish Onliner said in an email to The National, adding that those who operate the site are from various countries.

"Given the nature of the Jewish Onliner initiative and the kind of work we’re trying to do – often investigating individuals and organisations with troubling connections – keeping things anonymous is the best way for all of us on the team to stay protected and avoid potential personal risks."

As for Ms Doutaghi’s accusations that the report on her is false, the site is not backing down.

“She is not necessarily refuting claims of membership in Samidoun – she is merely rejecting the characterisation of herself as a terrorist,” a follow-up article read. “Despite multiple opportunities to do so, Ms Doutaghi has yet to explicitly deny her membership in Samidoun.”

In recent weeks, the use of AI by institutions and governments as a tool to target perceived enemies has come under increased scrutiny.

A report in Axios suggested the US State Department could use AI potentially to revoke the visas of international students accused of supporting Hamas.

The State Department told The National it “is committed to protecting our nation and its citizens by upholding the highest standards of national security and public safety through our visa process”.

Craig Smith, a partner at the Boston-based Lando and Anastasi law firm, said the State Department's potential use of AI was problematic. “In addition to the free speech issues, the use of artificial intelligence tools without transparency is concerning. AI tools are only as good as the models they are based on and how they are trained,” he told The National, referring to the potential for bias.

"AI tools are effective at summarising known information but interpreting the meaning of that information is more difficult."

In an email to The National, Jewish Onliner defended its use of AI: "While AI plays a significant role in enhancing and accelerating our work and content, we want to emphasise that it’s only a tool." The email added that content on the site is based on open-source data and articles are ultimately done by the site's human fact-checking team.

"We understand the concern about AI bias and the potential for missing nuance, which is why we make sure our human team carefully oversees content before publication," the email read. "We believe the quality of our content speaks for itself and should assuage any concerns or criticism about the use of AI."

Jewish Onliner also said it had "interesting plans" to expand the types of content on the site but did not elaborate.

Other endeavours and similar sites using AI and techniques like data-scraping have come under criticism.

Several weeks after the Israel-Gaza war began in 2023, the social networking platform LinkedIn sent a cease-and-desist letter to website Anti-Israel-Employees.com, accusing it of breaching the site's policies.

The letter came amid criticism that Anti-Israeli-Employees.com unfairly highlighted various users who used hashtags such as #FreeGaza and #PrayForPalestine, and mentioned their place of employment.

“Using automated tools to scrape LinkedIn violates our terms of service,” a representative for the Microsoft-owned site told The National last year. “And we work to notify sites when they do.”

Anti-Israeli-Employees.com is no longer active.

Meanwhile, Yale's suspension of Ms Doutaghi shows no sign of being overturned.

“In response to allegations about potential unlawful conduct, the appropriate process is to place an employee on a temporary administrative leave while a review is conducted to understand the facts of the matter. Such an action is never initiated based on a person’s protected speech," said Alden Ferro, a representative of Yale Law School.

"We take these allegations extremely seriously and immediately opened an investigation into the matter to ascertain the facts. Helyeh Doutaghi’s short-term position as an associate research scholar with the LPE Project expires next month. Until then, she has been placed on an immediate administrative leave pending the outcome of this investigation.”