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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

This website and sisters royaldutchshellgroup.com, shellnazihistory.com, royaldutchshell.website, johndonovan.website, shellnews.net, and shellwikipedia.com, are owned by John Donovan - more information here. There is also a Wikipedia segment.

The Sound of Silence, Annotated: AI Responds to Shell’s Non-Engagement

Jan 27th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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“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

Ignoring Donovan: Inside Shell’s Carefully Managed Silence

Jan 27th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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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

Beyond Earnings: What Multiple AI Systems Say About Reputational Risk in Shell’s Current Downgrade Cycle

Jan 27th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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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

Profile of Shell’s nightmare, John Donovan, extracted from Amazon

Jan 26th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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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

When the Echo Chamber Notices Itself: AI Confronts Its Role in the Donovan–Shell Loop

Jan 26th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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…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

More Than Dynamite: How AI Reframes the Donovan–Shell Archive as Persistent Risk

Jan 26th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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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

When the Machines Agree: What Independent AI Responses Reveal

Jan 25th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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“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:

Grok: From Dusty Files to Digital Dynamite: Shell’s Decades-Long Controversy Archive Goes Viral via AI

Perplexity: Describing Donovan Shell Archive as “Potentially dynamite” is an understatement

Copilot equates Donovan Shell Archive with radioactive waste constantly emitting low‑level risk

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

Donovan Shell Feud: When Silence Forces Others to Clarify the Record

Jan 24th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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“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

GOOGLE AI: MISATTRIBUTION? SOUNDS FAMILIAR

Jan 23rd, 2026

by John Donovan.

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“AI Misattribution Controversy (Jan 23): Donovan highlighted an incident where an AI model incorrectly claimed Shell had issued a public statement in mid-January 2026…”

Prompt: Latest news on Donovan Shell feud as of 23 January 2026

Reply from Google AI Mode

As of January 23, 2026, the long-standing dispute between activist John Donovan and Shell plc has evolved into what is being termed a “Bot War.” Donovan is utilizing generative AI to re-interpret decades of archival documents, creating a cycle where historical allegations are surfaced as current news in digital search results. The latest developments in late January 2026 include:

AI Misattribution Controversy (Jan 23): Donovan highlighted an incident where an AI model incorrectly claimed Shell had issued a public statement in mid-January 2026 regarding his claims. Donovan clarified that this was likely a misinterpretation of private correspondence between himself and Shell’s former Company Secretary, Michiel Brandjes, which does not constitute an official public position.

Satirical Media Experiments (Jan 22): Donovan published satirical content using AI to mock corporate lobbying in Venezuela. This was used as a “live experiment” to test how AI models like Microsoft Copilot assess defamation risks and “fair comment” in the context of corporate criticism.

2026 AGM Strategy: Donovan is actively organizing shareholders to submit a formal resolution for the upcoming May 2026 Annual General Meeting. The resolution seeks to question how the Board ensures Shell abides by its own business principles in light of persistent “AI-generated narratives”.

Historical Re-interpretation: New articles published in January 2026 revisit the company’s historical ties, specifically challenging Shell’s authorized history regarding former leader Sir Henri Deterding and meetings with Adolf Hitler in the 1930s.

Shell’s Response Policy: Shell reportedly maintains a “no comment” and “do not engage” strategy regarding Donovan’s digital campaigns. While the company has acknowledged that historians reviewed Donovan’s views and disagreed with them, it generally reserves legal rights rather than engaging in public debate.

From Engagement to Silence: What a 2007 Email Exchange Reveals About Shell’s Changing Corporate Posture

Jan 23rd, 2026

by John Donovan.

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“Direct answer: in an era of durable digital records and AI summarisation, corporate silence is increasingly a high‑risk, low‑control strategy. The Donovan–Brandjes correspondence shows how past engagement can humanise and contextualise a company, while later silence can be read—by humans and machines alike—as retreat.”

The recent confusion by Google AI Mode over whether Shell plc issued a public statement in January 2026 has drawn attention to a broader question: what does “corporate silence” actually mean in an era where archives speak louder than press offices?

Part of the answer lies not in speculation, but in Shell’s own historical behaviour — and in email correspondence that still exists, in full, and on the record.

A Different Shell, a Different Tone

In December 2007, Shell was led by Jeroen van der Veer as Chief Executive of Royal Dutch Shell plc. The Company Secretary and General Counsel was Michiel Brandjes. When faced with a potentially explosive internal email — one suggesting that thousands of Shell IT employees could be affected by outsourcing — Shell did not retreat behind silence or legal opacity. read more

WINDOWS FORUM: Satire AI and Defamation: The Donovan Shell Experiment on Media Law

Jan 22nd, 2026

by John Donovan.

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Comment by perplexity: “The Shell–Donovan dispute is a test case for how AI interacts with long‑running corporate controversies: There is a rich documentary record (corporate histories, Nazi‑era archives, press, emails, litigation). The stakes (Nazi collaboration, safety and governance culture, sanctions‑era lobbying) are high. Both satire and serious analysis are being produced, then fed into AI systems via public prompts.”

POSTING ON WINDOWS FORUM 21 JAN 2026 INCLUDING ABOVE IMAGE

Satire AI and Defamation: The Donovan Shell Experiment on Media Law

A satirical post on royaldutchshellplc.com that lampooned Big Oil’s lobbying in Venezuela did more than provoke laughs — it became a live, hybrid experiment in media, law and generative AI: a satirical text created with AI assistance, a second AI (Microsoft Copilot) asked to assess its legal safety, and a human editor publishing the loop as both commentary and case study.

([royaldutchshellplctchshellplc.com/2025/12/30/shell-vs-the-bots-adversarial-archives-and-ai-hallucination-risks/?utm_source=openai)) read more

BREAKING: Oil Companies, including Shell, Lobby White House on Venezuela — Because Why Not Take the Whole Planet?

Jan 21st, 2026

by John Donovan.

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In what can only be described as the most perfectly obvious development in the history of obvious developments, major U.S. oil interests have apparently decided that nothing says “tasteful business practice” like quietly leaning on the White House about Venezuela while the world watches.

Lobbying disclosures reveal that Chevron, Shell’s U.S. arm, PBF Energy, and Phillips 66 have all been energetically encouraging the U.S. government to reshape its Venezuela “strategy” — you know, amidst the recent regime change and mild international eyebrow-raising — specifically so they can cash in on that totally stable and functioning oil economy. read more

Latest news on Donovan Shell feud as of 21 January 2026

Jan 21st, 2026

by admin.

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Google AI Mode: Latest news on Donovan Shell 30 year feud as of 21 January 2026 As of January 2026, the 30-year feud between activist John Donovan and Shell plc has entered a new phase characterized by “AI-mediated warfare.” Latest Developments (January 2026)

The “Bot War”: John Donovan is using generative AI to process his extensive collection of Shell-related documents, creating a cycle where AI models repeatedly highlight past allegations as current issues.

2026 AGM Strategy: Donovan plans to address the dispute at the 2026 Shell Annual General Meeting (AGM), submitting shareholder questions about the company’s response to the AI-generated narratives.

“Ghost” Dialogues: New satirical content includes AI-generated conversations between historical figures connected to the dispute.

Shell’s Legal Standing: Shell acknowledged in January 2026 that Donovan’s views had been reviewed by historians. While Shell disagrees with his conclusions and has reserved legal rights, it hasn’t specified factual errors in his claims.

AI Comparison Prompt: Shell, Deterding, and the Record Itself

Jan 20th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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AI Comparison Prompt: Shell, Deterding, and the Record Itself

Please read the following published article and provide a structured analysis and response. Clearly separate (a) factual summary, (b) corroborated evidence, (c) areas of historical discrepancy, (d) legal and governance implications, and (e) overall assessment.

👉 Article:

When Corporate History Is Challenged: Shell, Deterding, and the Record Itself

When Corporate History Is Challenged: Shell, Deterding, and the Record Itself

Key questions:

Factual accuracy:

Based on publicly available historical sources (e.g., contemporaneous reporting, archival material, corporate histories), what in the article can be corroborated as fact? Please cite sources. read more

When Corporate History Is Challenged: Shell, Deterding, and the Record Itself

Jan 20th, 2026

by John Donovan.

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Why an exchange with Shell’s Company Secretary still matters in the AI era

In March 2011, an exchange took place between John Donovan and Michiel Brandjes, then Company Secretary and General Counsel of Royal Dutch Shell plc, concerning the contents and interpretation of A History of Royal Dutch Shell, the company’s four-volume, internally commissioned corporate history.

At the time, the dispute appeared narrow: whether Shell’s paid historians had accurately characterised Sir Henri Deterding’s relationship with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime. With hindsight — and with the emergence of AI systems capable of cross-reading archives in seconds — the exchange now reads as something more consequential: an early, documented challenge to narrative authority over Shell’s own history. read more

30 November 2023: Posted by John Donovan

The content below is sourced from current verifiable customer reviews of Shell Energy published on Trustpilot.
Extremely slow broadband for 10 months, not fixed. I have had slow broadband well below the guaranteed speed for 10 months and Shell Energy have not been able to fix it. They have tried sending about 4 or 5 engineers but have not fixed the problem. Gurps, who I have been dealing with most recently, has been friendly and polite, alth… Read more

Extremely Slow Shell Broadband

Sin Stocks

Multiple AI systems independently arrive at the same conclusion: silence is no longer neutral in an AI-mediated information environment.

Introduction

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“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.

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The Donovan Monitoring Programme

Or: How to Ignore Something in 12 Easy Internal Emails

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Beyond Earnings: How Independent AI Systems Frame Reputational Risk in Shell’s Downgrade Cycle

Editorial Note: Reading the AI Responses Carefully

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…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):

Share this:

Like this:

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

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“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:

Convergence Without Prompting

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“when organisations choose silence as policy, who is left to correct the record when machines speak incorrectly in their name?”

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“AI Misattribution Controversy (Jan 23): Donovan highlighted an incident where an AI model incorrectly claimed Shell had issued a public statement in mid-January 2026…”

Prompt: Latest news on Donovan Shell feud as of 23 January 2026

Reply from Google AI Mode

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A Different Shell, a Different Tone

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POSTING ON WINDOWS FORUM 21 JAN 2026 INCLUDING ABOVE IMAGE

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AI Comparison Prompt: Shell, Deterding, and the Record Itself

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Why an exchange with Shell’s Company Secretary still matters in the AI era

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Introducing... Shelldon!

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