Defunding the disinformation money machine
In this cross posting from 360info, disinformation is a profitable business, and one of the most effective ways to slow its spread is to take away the advertising money unwittingly funding it, writes Daniel J. Rogers, New York University.
Disinformation is peddled for a variety of motives. The Russian government employs disinformation as part of their expansionist geopolitical aims. The Chinese Communist Party uses it to further entrench their political authority and grow their global influence. Professional influence operators do so as guns for hire on behalf of powerful industries, ranging from oil to tobacco companies. Trolls on 4chan often do it in service of pure nihilism.
But by far the most common and compelling motivation to spread online disinformation is profit.
It has led the world to a veritable disinformation crisis. The biggest global companies are those who provide the machinery to capture and monetise audience attention at scale. Today’s internet is powered by businesses that capture and profit from “clicks and eyeballs”.
Who provides the money for this machine? Sometimes, audiences are monetised through merchandise sales or solicitation of direct donations. Most often, the cash comes from advertising. Advertisers subsidise the web to the tune of over US$400 billion a year in digital ad spend. They pay into a complex ecosystem dominated by two outsized ad tech platforms — Google and Facebook (which each take a sizable commission) — and their money ultimately makes its way to content creators and publishers on the open web.
