OpenAI banned accounts linked to a previously unreported, likely Russia-origin operation we dubbed "No Bell", using AI to produce criticism of the US and its allies for audiences across Africa.

This case study was originally published in OpenAI’s February 2026⁠(opens in a new window) report on disrupting malicious uses of AI.

We banned a ChatGPT account that was generating long-form articles and social media content about geopolitics in Africa. We began investigating this operation following a lead from Meta. The account likely originated in Russia. One of the long-form articles advocated that the president of Angola should win the Nobel Peace Prize; the ChatGPT user stated explicitly that this was intended to antagonize the team of US President Donald Trump. Based on this, we have dubbed it “No Bell”.

The ChatGPT account’s main activity was generating social media posts and long-form commentary articles about geopolitics in sub-Saharan Africa. The user mainly prompted in English, but sometimes input Russian-language instructions that they attributed to their manager. These instructions included edits and detailed feedback on some of the articles.

Some of the user’s content was posted on Facebook Pages that posed as news outlets in African countries including South Africa, Ghana, Kenya and Angola. Meta banned these Pages. Under Facebook’s transparency settings, a few of the Pages showed their admin locations, which included Russia and Ukraine. One Page focused on Kenya showed that it had originally been called “Farmtown5” and had then changed its name to “Kenya Watchtower”, suggesting that it had been acquired and repurposed from a supplier unrelated to the operation.

Source link