Last month, the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft claimed Israel is paying popular social-media personalities an average of $7,000 per post on TikTok and Instagram to promote pro-Israel content.
Citing “previously unreported” documents filed under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), the foreign policy think tank and research institute said Bridges Partners – a Washington-based firm working with Israel’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs through Havas Media Group Germany – had invoiced roughly $900,000 for an “Influencer Campaign” running from June to November 2025.
According to the think tank, once supposed administrative and production costs were subtracted, about $552,946 remained “for influencers,” producing an estimated 75–90 posts. From that, it concluded each post must be worth roughly $6,000–$7,000.
The claim spread quickly across social media and was repeated by several media outlets. But a review of the same FARA filing shows that this interpretation simply doesn’t hold up.
What the Documents Actually Show
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It’s a campaign budget, not pay-per-post.
The insertion order lists month-by-month “Influencer Campaign (USD)” miscellaneous costs that cover both “payments for influencers and production.” It’s a single, pooled campaign budget – not a rate card, not a per-post payment schedule. -
Post numbers are estimates, not evidence.
Each phase mentions “Post volume: approx. 25–30.” These are planning projections, not verified outputs. Dividing total costs by these estimates to produce a “per-post” figure is simply bad math. -
Influencer numbers are projected, not proven.
The document says “5–6 influencers begin creating content,” then “3–4 additional activated,” and two “3–4 more.” That totals around 14–18 influencers planned, but no names or contracts appear anywhere. It’s a staffing plan, not a confirmed roster. -
No breakdown of how the money was spent.
The filing never specifies how much of the budget went to influencers versus production, travel, editing, or management. The claim that “$552,946 was left for influencers” is a guess, not a fact. -
The “second document” isn’t separate – it’s just an appendix.
The appendix to the same FARA filing lists legal fees, consulting services, and banking costs. It doesn’t tie those expenses to influencer work or identify anyone who was paid to post. You can’t subtract those numbers and pretend the remainder equals “influencer pay.” -
It’s a proposal, not a signed contract.
Each section of the order is marked “No Contract,” showing these are budgeted phases and estimates, not finalized payment agreements or invoices.
The Bottom Line
Nothing in the FARA filing supports the claim that influencers were paid $7,000 per post – or any specific per-post amount at all. The $900,000 represents a broad campaign allocation covering all costs of content development and management over several months, not a set fee to creators for each upload.
If readers need perspective, many governments run formal programs to promote their narratives and counter hostile information operations online. Israel’s MFA explicitly maintains Digital/Communications & Digital Diplomacy offices that share official information, engage audiences, and combat online antisemitism/misinformation via social channels. In short, openly declared public-diplomacy activity, not covert pay-per-post schemes.
Sensational averages – like “$7,000 per post” – are viral by design. They are attention-grabbing and apparently “specific.” But specificity does not equal sourcing. The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft’s $7,000 figure is a plausible arithmetic result of a chain of assumptions (inferred headcount + estimated post volumes + guessed allocation of budget to creators).
If reporters, platforms, and readers want to know what creators were actually paid, the only definitive evidence would be contracts, invoices named to individual creators, or bank records showing payments to named influencers. Absent that, the responsible framing is that the filing shows a planned, blended campaign. It does not prove $7,000-per-post payouts.
There’s nothing unusual about governments running public diplomacy campaigns. In Israel’s case, such efforts are a necessity. Since the Hamas attacks on October 7, 2023, antisemitism and anti-Israel disinformation have exploded online – from Hamas-produced propaganda videos to coordinated social-media campaigns designed to delegitimize Israel and to glorify terrorism. Israel’s enemies haven’t only fought with rockets and rifles, but with trending hashtags, deep-fake “evidence,” and doctored images shared millions of times before facts can catch up.
It’s precisely this information war that explains why Israel invests in counter-messaging and digital diplomacy. Such activity is transparent, routine, and defensive in nature: the modern equivalent of a press office, not a covert “influencer army.”
The “$7,000-a-video” claim will no doubt keep spreading online, because sensational numbers travel faster than nuance. But the FARA filing does not prove secret pay-per-post operations. It shows a modest, bureaucratic public-diplomacy campaign. Once again, Israel finds itself not only defending its borders, but defending truth itself in an arena where lies go viral long before the first fact-check lands.
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