Blog: The disinformation economy

“Driven by the engagement-focused business models of social media and the algorithmic allocation of advertising funds, multiple online actors — from content creators to the platforms themselves — have the financial incentives to promote and amplify incendiary content.

The fundamental principle of the Internet’s business model is simple: engagement equals revenue. Each view, click, comment, and repost is an engagement that potentially translates to money. Consequently, content creators have learned to circulate precisely the type of content that generates clicks, which, as we know from existing marketing research, is likely shocking, highly emotional, and tribalizing. The last one means that the controversial content that forces self-classification into us vs. them groups will likely generate interactions. In turn, the social media algorithm picks up engaging content and distributes it further.”

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 The disinformation economy