The Pentagon is running an AI propaganda mill targeting Latin America

Source: Hacker News

Overview

The United States is feeding Pentagon propaganda to internet users in Latin American countries through a new AI‑laden content mill, an investigation by The Intercept has found.

La Tilde (latilde.co) quietly began development early this year and is still a work in progress. It pitches itself as a modern media brand for Latin American audiences, publishing articles in both Spanish and English. Its name references the accent mark (tilde) that emphasizes vowels in Spanish; the site’s catchphrase is “news with an accent.”

“The tilde is not an ornament. It is a millennial arrow designed to provide direction, save space, and turn up the volume,” a narrator states in a promotional video. The video shows telltale AI‑generated signs, such as a newspaper with the garbled headline “SO THEE HOUTIERRER TO TO GHAHOBATEE” and imagery of two medieval monks.
“That is why we place the accent on what matters. From the regional pulse and your well‑being, to the big ideas and the global context.”

Content Mix

So far, La Tilde’s coverage blends:

• Personal‑finance tips – e.g., “Why instant payments matter so much for your business and your wallet.”
• Pro‑U.S. military narratives – e.g., articles extolling the value of U.S. operations in Latin America such as “Operation Absolute Resolve: The mission that captured Nicolás Maduro and set a new standard for precision and coordination.”

The site’s article on the U.S. abduction of the Venezuelan president praises the mission in Trumpian prose, calling it:

• “The Perfect Operation – Coordination, Timing and Precision at an Unprecedented Scale,” and
• “a military operation of coordination and accuracy never seen before.”

It cites “information obtained exclusively by La Tilde” and describes the operation’s tactical brilliance, flawless execution, and precise coordination of assets in the air and on the ground.

Funding Disclosure

If the coverage reads like a Pentagon press release, that’s because it is. A small link at the bottom of the site’s About page states:

“La Tilde is a product of an international media organization publicly funded from the budget of the United States Government.”

This disclosure mirrors language used on two other Pentagon‑sponsored propaganda sites recently revealed by The Intercept.

Targeting audiences—foreign or domestic—with state‑run information campaigns remains a politically sensitive topic. The token disclosure allows the U.S. government to claim it has technically informed readers about the source of the information.

Military Oversight

According to a defense official familiar with U.S. information operations:

• La Tilde is operated as a military messaging platform for U.S. Special Operations Command South (SOCSOUTH), which conducts special‑forces missions throughout South and Central America and the Caribbean.
• When asked about SOCSOUTH’s role, spokesperson Trevor Wild quoted the site’s About page and declined further comment.

U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) – broadly responsible for coordinating military assets in the countries La Tilde targets – denied involvement:

“SOUTHCOM does not fund, operate, or have any official association with La Tilde,” said spokesperson Steven McLoud.

Lack of Traditional Newsroom Structure

Unlike most news websites, La Tilde:

• Carries no bylines, masthead, or staff listings.
• Claims to employ “dozens of freelance reporters and content creators,” yet many articles appear to be generated by a large language model.
• AI‑text detection via Pangram produced multiple hits indicating partial or full machine‑written content (noting that such tools can generate false positives).

Emerson Brooking, a fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab and former Pentagon cyber‑policy adviser, described the site as “AI all the way down.”

AI‑Generated Propaganda

Despite low quality, AI‑generated articles enable rapid scaling of propaganda:

“If you can generate new content and even news fronts at the flip of a switch, your influence operations can shift target and focus much more quickly,” Brooking said, noting similar tactics in Russian and Chinese networks.

Regional Targeting

Analysis of subdomains on LaTilde.co shows plans to launch bespoke versions for readers in:

• Ecuador, El Salvador, Guyana, Honduras, Jamaica, Panama, and Peru.

Example: Panama

An article in the “In Good Hands” section highlights U.S.–Panamanian joint jungle‑warfare training, describing how “temperatures and heart rates climb at the Cristóbal Colón Naval Air Base as Panamanian security forces push forward through the ‘Green Mile,’ the demanding final test of the Combined Jungle Operations Course.”

The piece frames the training as a bulwark against China’s attempts to conduct similar exercises in Latin America, urging countries to “seek training opportunities closer to home or with longstanding partners such as the United States.”

The article omits controversy surrounding PANAMAX, a joint exercise between SOUTHCOM and Panamanian forces that has sparked protests over alleged violations of national sovereignty. Permanent U.S. bases in Panama were closed in 1999 under a 1977 treaty; opposition parties have decried the re‑establishment of a U.S. military presence as a “camouflaged invasion.” Participants in the 2025 PANAMAX exercise include the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (formerly the School of the Americas), whose alumni include Latin American death‑squad gunmen and dictator Manuel Noriega.

Pro‑U.S. Narrative Themes

• Security partnerships are portrayed as strengthening, not weakening, sovereignty.

• Articles downplay sovereignty concerns while praising U.S. actions, e.g.:

  • A piece describing how the Maduro abduction “has reawakened a long‑contained hope among millions of Venezuelans.”
  • Another alleging Ecuador is a nexus of the international cocaine trade, echoing Trump‑era claims used to expand Operation Southern Spear and SOUTHCOM’s Caribbean air‑strike campaign, which has reportedly killed over 200 civilians.

Related Propaganda Networks

A similar network of military‑propaganda pages, descendants of the Obama‑era Trans‑Regional Web Initiative (TRWI), appears to be administered by General Dynamics Information Technology.

• Renée DiResta, co‑author of a 2022 report on online propaganda backed by U.S. Central Command, noted that TRWI successor sites share a common Google Ads identifier owned by General Dynamics, based on her recent comprehensive analysis.
• La Tilde’s legal disclosure uses identical language to those sites.

General Dynamics did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Halcyon Group International, another contractor that operates the pseudo‑news site Diálogo Américas, also denied involvement with La Tilde.

Contractors and Design

• Antpack, a Colombian digital‑marketing firm, subcontracted the website design. Multiple AI‑generated image files (created with Midjourney) contain “Antpack” in their filenames.
• The Intercept signed up for a user account on La Tilde and accessed a non‑public version of the site used by developers, who posted comments under names matching LinkedIn profiles of Antpack employees. Antpack did not respond to comment requests.

Historical Context of U.S. Military Online Propaganda

U.S. Special Operations has a long record of leading internet propaganda efforts, from high‑tech projects to low‑sophistication “phony online newsrooms.” Since 2018, SOCOM has operated the Joint Military Information Support Operations Web Operations Center, coordinating information warfare and online psychological operations.

In 2023, The Intercept reported that SOCOM was acquiring state‑of‑the‑art “deepfake” video fabrication technologies to generate messages via non‑traditional channels. La Tilde, however, appears to rely on low‑effort AI tools. Artwork often includes the prompt used to generate the image in the filename, resulting in mixed quality (e.g., a White House rendering missing columns or a diploma with garbled text). Photographs supporting pro‑SOUTHCOM messaging are drawn from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, an official Pentagon media library.

“The intent is probably to fill these sites with generic material, build an audience base, and then slip in more pieces of explicit propaganda, like that rather fulsome recounting of the U.S. attack on Venezuela,” Brooking said. “This is how you build these sorts of networks. But the content is lazy, the AI is bad, and the required disclosures make the whole thing a farce.”