KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 15): Istanbul-based technology company BBS Teknoloji has denied any involvement in an alleged election-manipulation operation in Malaysia, following a report by US artificial intelligence (AI) firm Anthropic that linked its name to the campaign.
In a Turkish statement posted on LinkedIn last Friday and translated, BBS Teknoloji said it was saddened by the allegations made public on Sept 11 and firmly denied any knowledge of, involvement in or approval of the activities described.
“BBS Teknoloji has no interest, knowledge or approval of the activities subject to these allegations. We firmly deny the allegations,” it said.
The company said it was conducting an internal investigation into the matter, including the possibility that its name, digital assets or individuals formerly associated with the company may have been used without its knowledge.
BBS Teknoloji said it would file a criminal complaint with the Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office and initiate the necessary legal proceedings if concrete findings identifying those responsible were obtained.
The US-based AI firm revealed in a report last week that it had disrupted an election-manipulation platform that ingested census and electoral data across all 222 parliamentary constituencies in Malaysia. According to Anthropic, the system used Claude models to construct an AI-powered voter profiling framework designed to exploit sensitive political and social fault lines, including race, religion and royalty.
Anthropic traced the operation to BBS Bilişim Teknolojileri, alleging the firm sold access to the platform as a paid "influence-as-a-service" tool. Posing as a defensive cyber intelligence outlet, the operation reportedly deployed roughly 1,000 fake X (formerly Twitter) accounts, operated a fabricated news site, and generated fake intelligence dossiers.
BBS Teknoloji said its investigation was ongoing and that it would take legal action against those responsible if its findings established wrongdoing.