On September 11, 2026, BBS Bilisim Teknolojileri denied involvement, knowledge, or approval in the Claude-linked influence operation that Anthropic had described the previous day. Malaysia’s Communications and Multimedia Commission (MCMC) also rejected participation in the activities or arrangements described by Anthropic.
Anthropic said it had disrupted the commercial platform and removed a Claude account connected to it. The company described a system that profiled Malaysian voters, coordinated more than 1,000 fake X accounts, rewrote news and produced fabricated political dossiers. Anthropic also said it found no evidence that the campaign broke into authentic communities or gained meaningful organic traction.
What Anthropic described
Anthropic said the platform analyzed census and electoral data covering all 222 Malaysian parliamentary constituencies, including millions of voter records. Its reported targeting focused on race, religion and royalty.
The operation also allegedly ran Malaysia Pulse, a fabricated news site that rewrote legitimate Malaysian news under false bylines and republished material from Chinese and Russian state-aligned outlets without those labels. Anthropic said Claude helped with constituency profiling, infrastructure development, news rewriting and the creation of dossiers containing false allegations against an opposition politician and civil-society organizations.
The reported network included more than 1,000 fake X accounts with account-warming mechanisms, including cookie and IP-address renewal. A dashboard allegedly let operators set artificial-view targets. Anthropic said it observed one request for 1 million artificial views supporting Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim, without identifying who made the request or connecting it to Anwar Ibrahim or his office.
Anthropic said Claude sometimes refused or partially refused requests before the operator changed the wording. That detail matters: the reported system involved using an AI model inside a wider influence infrastructure, not simply publishing individual chatbot responses.
Scale is not the same as political impact
The operation’s reported technical reach and its reported public traction are separate questions. Anthropic described a large collection of accounts, data and content tools, but said it found no evidence of a breakout into authentic online communities or meaningful organic traction.
That leaves the central practical distinction intact: a platform can be built to manufacture political activity without the activity necessarily becoming a genuine mass conversation. Saifuddin Ahmed, a new-media expert, characterized the alleged tactics as an attempt to create an artificial public conversation while concealing who was behind it.
The alleged request involving Anwar Ibrahim’s account also does not identify the requester or show that the requested views changed public opinion. The supplied account contains no measured effect on voter behavior or election results.
BBS and MCMC reject the reported links
BBS Bilisim Teknolojileri, an Istanbul-based company linked by Anthropic to the platform, denied involvement, knowledge or approval. The company said it was examining whether its name or digital assets had been used without its knowledge, potentially by former associates. BBS said it would consider filing a criminal complaint after obtaining concrete findings.
MCMC separately denied engaging in the activities or arrangements described by Anthropic. Anthropic said the operator had pursued a contract with Malaysia’s national communications regulator but found no evidence that the pursuit succeeded.
The denials do not change what Anthropic reported about the platform’s tools, but they place responsibility for the alleged operation at the center of the dispute.
Chronology of the dispute
| Date | Event | Actor |
| December 2025–August 2026 | Period covered by Anthropic’s account of the misuse activity | Anthropic |
| May 10, 2026 | The malaysiapulse.com domain was registered, according to the reported account of the operation | The alleged operators |
| September 10, 2026 | Anthropic published its threat-intelligence report and said it had disrupted the Claude-linked operation | Anthropic |
| September 11, 2026 | BBS Bilisim Teknolojileri denied involvement, and MCMC denied participating in the described activities | BBS Bilisim Teknolojileri and MCMC |
| September 15, 2026 | BBS’s denial and internal review were reported publicly | BBS Bilisim Teknolojileri |
BBS’s internal review and its possible legal action remain the company’s stated next steps after the September 11 denial.
