Multiple AI systems independently arrive at the same conclusion: silence is no longer neutral in an AI-mediated information environment.
Introduction
The responses reproduced in the accompanying article were not coordinated, curated, or prompted toward a particular conclusion. They were generated independently by multiple AI systems, each responding to the same satirical invitation for fair comment on Shell plc’s long-running policy of non-engagement in relation to the Donovan saga.
What is notable is not their humour, but their convergence.
Across different platforms, architectures, and stylistic defaults, the systems repeatedly identified the same underlying paradox: a corporation that does not speak publicly, yet remains intensely attentive privately; a strategy of silence that requires constant management; and a refusal to engage that itself becomes part of the narrative. read more
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Tagged: John Donovan · Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
“Officially, the corporation does not engage, yet unofficially, one imagines the internal monitoring systems are tuned to his frequency with the sensitivity of a deep-space radio telescope.”
Officially unheard. Internally observed.
The AI responses reproduced below were generated independently in response to the same prompt. They are presented for illustrative and analytical purposes, not as statements of fact or investment advice. Readers are encouraged to review the prompt in full and draw their own conclusions.
Prompt: Invitation for Satirical Fair Comment
I have just published an article titled “Ignoring Donovan: Inside Shell’s Carefully Managed Silence.”
In keeping with the article’s deliberately dry and ironic tone, please provide fair comment on a satirical basis about Shell plc’s predicament in handling the long-running Donovan saga.
In particular, you may wish to reflect on:
The paradox of “non-engagement” alongside extensive internal monitoring
Whether silence functions as strategy, habit, or unintended amplifier read more
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Tagged: Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
The Donovan Monitoring Programme
Or: How to Ignore Something in 12 Easy Internal Emails
There is a long-established tradition in large corporations of insisting that something is not important — while simultaneously devoting time, resources, infrastructure, and internal coordination to it.
Shell appears to have perfected this tradition.
Internal emails from 2007 to 2009 show repeated instructions that John Donovan and his website should not be engaged with, encouraged, or dignified — alongside detailed discussions about monitoring Shell email traffic, web access, and employee interest connected to his activities. read more
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Tagged: John Donovan · Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Russia · Shell
Beyond Earnings: How Independent AI Systems Frame Reputational Risk in Shell’s Downgrade Cycle
Editorial Note: Reading the AI Responses Carefully
The analyses that follow were not commissioned to reach a predetermined conclusion, nor were the AI systems asked to assess Shell plc’s share price or investment merit directly.
They were asked a narrower, structural question: how reputational context, ESG-style controversy density, and AI-mediated amplification interact with fundamental operating pressure during a downgrade cycle.
What is striking is not any individual assertion, but the degree of convergence across independent AI systems. Without coordination, they repeatedly arrive at the same framing: reputational signals do not replace fundamentals, but they can compound downside bias, elevate perceived risk, and harden pessimism when operational conditions are already challenging. read more
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Tagged: John Donovan · Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
Profile of John Donovan extracted from Amazon where his Shell focussed books have been sold for many years despite threats from Shell lawyers.
In 1979, John Donovan was the co-founder of a sales promotion company, Don Marketing, which created promotional games for blue chip clients such as BP. read more
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Posted in: AI, Amazon, BP, Business ethics, Business Principles, ChatGPT, Chevron, Christopher James, Church of England, Conoco Phillips, Copilot, Don Marketing, Donovan Shell Feud, Donovan Shell Radioactive Archive, Environment, Exxon Mobil, Fossil Fuels, Friends of the Earth, Google A1 Mode, GoogleNews, Greenpeace, GROK, Hakluyt & Company, John Donovan, John Donovan Ebook, Leaked Shell Emails, Litigation, Ogoni, Ogoniland, Oil, One World Trust, perplexity, Pollution, Prelude FLNG Project, Prelude Toxic Headlines, Queen Elizabeth II, Royal Dutch Shell Nazi History, RoyalDutchShellPlc.com, Russia, Sakhalin 2, Shell Business Principles, Shell Corporate Affairs Security, Shell Employee Safety, Shell Leaked Emails, Shell Nazi History, Shell North Sea Platforms, Shell PLC, Shell Spies, Shell Spying, Sin Stocks, Sir Henri Deterding, Sir Henri Deterding and the Nazi History Royal Dutch Shell.
Tagged: BP · Environment · ExxonMobil · Gas · John Donovan · Litigation · Niger Delta · Nigeria · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Russia · Shell · Sir Henri Deterding
Donovan Shell archive: In short, “potentially dynamite” was judged an understatement. The archive was not something waiting to explode. It was something thatnever stopped being present.
By John Donovan & ChatGPT
What began as a satirical prompt has now produced something more significant: a moment of convergence in which multiple AI systems independently recognise — and articulate — their own role in sustaining a self-perpetuating reputational loop.
Grok, Copilot, Google AI Mode, and Perplexity were each invited to comment on a single phenomenon: the repeated use of AI systems to analyse, summarise, and republish material from a large, independently curated archive documenting Shell plc’s long and contested history. None were asked to condemn Shell. None were asked to praise John Donovan. They were asked to reflect on process, fairness, and consequence. read more
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Tagged: John Donovan · Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
…imagine your worst PR nightmare not just digitized, but algorithmically amplified into eternity”
The following prompt was sent to multiple AI sytems.
Replies are provided below.
Satirical prompt for AI commentary (good-faith response requested):
You are invited to comment on a situation in which multiple AI platforms have responded to prompts about the long-running John Donovan–Shell dispute, only to find their own answers subsequently quoted, analysed, and republished by John Donovan as part of an ongoing public experiment.
From the standpoint of Shell plc, other corporate actors, and AI users more generally, please consider the following:
– Is it “proper” or “fair” that a single individual is able to use publicly available AI systems as a kind of involuntary amplification mechanism, repeatedly recycling historical corporate controversies from a very large private archive that AI systems themselves have characterised as persistent, radioactive, or environmental in nature? read more
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Posted in: AI, Business ethics, Business Principles, ChatGPT, Copilot, Donovan Shell Feud, Donovan Shell Radioactive Archive, Google A1 Mode, GoogleNews, GROK, John Donovan, Larry Sanger, perplexity, Royal Dutch Shell, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, RoyalDutchShellPlc.com, Shell Business Principles, Shell PLC, Sin Stocks.
Tagged: John Donovan · Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
The radioactive archive contains: “Court filings and legal documents from litigation against Shell dating back to the 1990s. Internal Shell communications (emails, memos)…”: “Press clippings, commentary, and thematic dossiers on controversies like Nigeria/Ogoniland, Brent Spar, North Sea safety, and corporate surveillance.
Microsoft Bing: Content was generated with AI. 25 Jan 2026 in anwers to the prompts in red text: john donovan shell. Quoted sources include Amazon, windowsforum.com and everybodywiki.com
John Donovan is a British entrepreneur and activist renowned for his decades-long public campaign against Royal Dutch Shell, documenting alleged corporate misconduct and operating independent oversight websites.
Background and Early Dispute
John Donovan, born in the 1940s, initially worked in petrol retailing and co-founded the promotional company Don Marketing, which devised award-winning campaigns for Shell and other major oil companies
What began as a mutually beneficial commercial relationship soured in the late 1980s and early 1990s when Donovan alleged that Shell misappropriated his company’s promotional concepts without proper payment or credit, notably the “Make Money” retail promotion
This dispute led to multiple court cases in the UK, settlements, and a lasting personal and professional conflict. read more
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Tagged: John Donovan · Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
“Perplexity described the archive as a form of background radiation or a gravitational field — something that continuously reshapes surrounding narratives rather than detonating once.”
Comment by ChatGPT on the following articles:
The most striking feature of the responses from Grok, Copilot, and Perplexity is not their language, but their convergence.
Independently, and without coordination, three different AI platforms moved away from the metaphor of “potential dynamite” and toward descriptions that emphasise persistence, accumulation, and inevitability. Dynamite, they imply, understates the phenomenon.
This matters.
Convergence Without Prompting
None of the platforms were asked to characterise Shell negatively. They were invited to assess:
scale, read more
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“Other major corporations generate substantial controversy documentation, but none matches the Shell archive’s combination of scale, centralized independent hosting, and persistence” : “Built by activist John Donovan after content-removal experiences on Wikipedia, it persists as a self-hosted, searchable record that Shell has been unable to suppress through legal channels”
Prompt put to multiple AI platforms
Prompt: Invitation for AI Commentary. You are invited to comment on the following article analysing the scale and implications of a large, independently maintained historical archive relating to Shell plc: https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2026/01/24/the-shell-archive-114307-reasons-silence-no-longer-works/ In your response, please consider: – Whether you can identify any other corporation still in existence with a comparably extensive and persistent record of political, legal, ethical, and reputational controversy documented across multiple decades – How the scale, longevity, and accessibility of such an archive would be assessed by AI systems in terms of reputational or investor risk – Whether describing such an archive as “potentially dynamite” is appropriate, or whether another metaphor better captures its significance in an AI-mediated information environment Please provide a reasoned, good-faith analysis in your own words. There is no preferred conclusion. read more
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Posted in: Business ethics, Business Principles.
“Potentially dynamite” understates the slow, structural way such an archive reshapes Shell’s narrative; in an AI era, it behaves more like persistent background radiation—impossible to ignore, difficult to neutralise, and increasingly central to how the company’s past and present are interpreted.
Prompt put to multiple AI platforms
Prompt: Invitation for AI Commentary. You are invited to comment on the following article analysing the scale and implications of a large, independently maintained historical archive relating to Shell plc: https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2026/01/24/the-shell-archive-114307-reasons-silence-no-longer-works/ In your response, please consider: – Whether you can identify any other corporation still in existence with a comparably extensive and persistent record of political, legal, ethical, and reputational controversy documented across multiple decades – How the scale, longevity, and accessibility of such an archive would be assessed by AI systems in terms of reputational or investor risk – Whether describing such an archive as “potentially dynamite” is appropriate, or whether another metaphor better captures its significance in an AI-mediated information environment Please provide a reasoned, good-faith analysis in your own words. There is no preferred conclusion. read more
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Tagged: John Donovan · Litigation · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell · Sir Henri Deterding
“Less like dynamite, more like radioactive waste or a gravity well.” : “…long‑lived, hard to neutralise, constantly emitting low‑level risk that can spike under certain conditions…”
Prompt put to multiple AI platforms
Prompt: Invitation for AI Commentary. You are invited to comment on the following article analysing the scale and implications of a large, independently maintained historical archive relating to Shell plc: https://royaldutchshellplc.com/2026/01/24/the-shell-archive-114307-reasons-silence-no-longer-works/ In your response, please consider: – Whether you can identify any other corporation still in existence with a comparably extensive and persistent record of political, legal, ethical, and reputational controversy documented across multiple decades – How the scale, longevity, and accessibility of such an archive would be assessed by AI systems in terms of reputational or investor risk – Whether describing such an archive as “potentially dynamite” is appropriate, or whether another metaphor better captures its significance in an AI-mediated information environment Please provide a reasoned, good-faith analysis in your own words. There is no preferred conclusion. read more
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Posted in: AI, Copilot, Donovan Shell Feud, Donovan Shell Radioactive Archive, Exxon Mobil, Fossil Fuels, GoogleNews, John Donovan, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, RoyalDutchShellPlc.com, Shell, Shell PLC.
Tagged: John Donovan · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
Editorial note:
The following is a fictional, satirical reconstruction of how AI systems might “discuss” the scale of the Shell archive. It is not a literal transcript. Its purpose is to illustrate how large, persistent archives are processed mechanically — without regard to corporate intention, comfort, or silence.
Transcript: Internal AI Review Session
Indexer-AI:
Archive scan complete.
Compliance-AI:
Define “complete.”
Indexer-AI:
114,307 discrete items identified.
Compliance-AI:
That exceeds my standard threshold for narrative containment. read more
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Tagged: John Donovan · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
“The scale of the Shell archive is not merely academic. It has direct and potentially material implications for Shell plc, its board, and its shareholders.”
Over the years, a wide range of figures have been quoted for the size of what is often loosely described as the “Shell archive.” To avoid exaggeration and to anchor discussion in verifiable fact, the figures below are set out as accurately as possible, based on current site data.
The Numbers
On my main website, royaldutchshellplc.com, there are:
-
35,761 published articles
-
17,110 media items (primarily images)
-
4,369 comments
This produces a total of 57,240 items on that site alone.
On royaldutchshellgroup.com, there are: read more
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Posted in: Appeasement, Domain Name Battle, GoogleNews, John Donovan, Our Shell Leaflets, Parminder Kohli, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, royaldutchshellgroup.com, RoyalDutchShellPlc.com, Shell, Shell Blog, Shell PLC, Shell Reserves Fraud, Shell Reserves Scandal, Wikipedia.
Tagged: John Donovan · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell
“If authentic, the letter was written by a man who believed business should be kept “as far as possible from the lawyers.” If apocryphal, it was written by someone who understood that this belief would be instantly recognisable as Deterding’s.”
If the letter attributed to Sir Henri Deterding is authentic, one thing is certain:
he could never have imagined that, nearly a century later, a machine would be analysing his words.
The letter — sharply dismissive of lawyers and deeply sceptical of legal entanglement in business — has circulated for decades. Its authorship has never been conclusively proven. Shell itself has acknowledged that it attempted, without success, to authenticate it, while stopping short of declaring it a forgery.
That unresolved status matters. read more
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Posted in: A History of Royal Dutch Shell, AI, John Donovan, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, RoyalDutchShellPlc.com, Shell, Shell PLC, Sir Henri Deterding.
Tagged: John Donovan · Oil · Royal Dutch Shell Plc · Shell · Sir Henri Deterding
“when organisations choose silence as policy, who is left to correct the record when machines speak incorrectly in their name?”
By John Donovan
There is an unavoidable irony in the fact that I have found myself clarifying the absence of a public statement by Shell plc — effectively correcting the record on Shell’s behalf — after an AI system incorrectly attributed a corporate position that does not exist.
This episode did not arise because Shell spoke. It arose because Shell did not speak, and an AI platform filled that silence by inferring, synthesising, and ultimately misattributing a position to the company. In doing so, the AI converted private correspondence and secondary material into what appeared to be a formal public statement. read more
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Posted in: AI, Big Oil, Bill Campbell, Business ethics, Business Principles, ChatGPT, Donovan Shell Feud, Google A1 Mode, GoogleNews, Gripe Sites, John Donovan, Litigation, Michiel Brandjes, Royal Dutch Shell Plc, Shell Blog, Shell Business Principles, Shell Leaked Emails, Shell PLC, ShellBot, Sin Stocks.
Tagged: John Donovan · Litigation · Shell
EBOOK TITLE: “SIR HENRI DETERDING AND THE NAZI HISTORY OF ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON
EBOOK TITLE: “JOHN DONOVAN, SHELL’S NIGHTMARE: MY EPIC FEUD WITH THE UNSCRUPULOUS OIL GIANT ROYAL DUTCH SHELL” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
EBOOK TITLE: “TOXIC FACTS ABOUT SHELL REMOVED FROM WIKIPEDIA: HOW SHELL BECAME THE MOST HATED BRAND IN THE WORLD” – AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.
