The Rise of Disinformation Entrepreneurs

When it comes to political messages, who or what are you really talking to?

Reviewed by Gary Drevitch

Key points

• The disinformation-for-hire sector is extremely profitable, with the US elections a prime target.
• Astroturfing—fake grassroots campaigning—is emerging as a powerful disinformation tool.
• Hate and anger are extremely powerful drivers, but we can find ways to resist.

Less than a week out from the 2024 U.S. presidential elections, it feels like angry X and Facebook posts, memes, comments, and videos from rival sides are everywhere.

But do you really know who you are talking to, or arguing with?

As it turns out, most of us don't.

Here's why it's crucial to find out, before we cast our vote on Election Day.

Engagement for Cash

A new breed of content creator—the disinformation entrepreneur—has exploded in recent years, exploiting our political beliefs and values for money.

Posing as fellow Americans (Democrats, Republicans, or others) the goal of disinformation entrepreneurs (DE) across the world is simple: Search daily trending topics, then ramp up polarization between partisan voters as aggressively as possible by baiting readers with outrageous, offensive posts. The political issue, nation, or ideology is not important; the capacity to make a few bucks is all that counts.

The barriers to entry in this rapidly exploding industry are remarkably low: All you really need to begin a potentially profitable DE hustle is a wi-fi connection and a laptop.

The Holy Grail

Unable to stomach the lies, or turn our cheek to ugly untruths, we respond to hostile, baiting DE posts with angry responses or outraged retweets. By doing so, we are handing the DE the holy grail they seek: engagement.

Hate and anger are key drivers when it comes to online engagement, which is why we see so much vicious content online right now, but an effective DE does not care whether your response to their triggering content is positive or negative. In either case, you've served your purpose and helped them earn a few cents on the dollar.

The kicker? They usually couldn't care less about the politicians or political beliefs that are so deeply important to us. Yet their posts might move the needle in how some of us end up voting: Studies show that resharing misinformation can be rewarding to us. In fact, habitual (heavy) users of social media are six times more likely to reshare disinformation, partly because it is so engaging, entertaining, and attractive to our own networks. Propaganda and disinformation really do influence elections.

Make no mistake: This is a bipartisan problem. We are all targeted.

While the market continues to boom for large, polished PR agencies, countless smaller operators have launched online. In 2024, The Economist Europe reported that the number of AI-generated proxy media sites pushing fake news had grown from 49 to 802 since May 2023. A recent New York Times article highlighted disinformation-for-hire projects in India, Egypt, Bolivia, Venezuela, Brazil, Ukraine, Central African Republic, Israel, and Russia, along with the U.S.

Astroturfing

While many DEs may actually be teenagers in their parents' basements or anyone, in fact, trying to make a side income, the most powerful disinformation-for-hire campaigns are now run by large domestic and foreign PR firms commissioned to run fake grassroots campaigns. Known as astroturfing, these campaigns are designed to make voters think that there is an organic, even heartwarming groundswell of support for a cause when in reality little or none exists.

Essentially, the goal of astroturfing (and all disinformation-for-hire) is to create manipulative fake news content for profit and manipulate discord among rival groups. Common strategies include troll farms, click farms, fake-front news sites, fake social media accounts, and paid human and AI-generated engagement with specific political content. By creating a mirage of organic support, these campaigns play to our evolutionary instincts to herd. If a cause is popular, we think, there must be something to it.

Disinformation Superstars

The growth of the disinformation sector has been remarkable. Since 2018, in excess of 65 private marketing, communications, and public relations firms have consistently offered disinformation-for-hire services across 48 countries, with many contracts fulfilled on behalf of governments, politicians and political parties.

A recent study found that more than 6.6 million tweets linking to fake and conspiracy news publishers appeared on Twitter in the month before the 2016 election, with disinformation accounts pumping out around a million fake tweets a day. Unbelievably, only 50 fake news sites were responsible for 89% of links.

The same study found that around 33% of the most-followed fake-news tweeters studied in the research were bots, not people. The majority of disinformation is still strategically pumped out by a minority of DE accounts.

A highly lucrative sub-set of disinformation entrepreneurism is now referred to as ideological or conspiracy entrepreneurism. Quoted recently in an article for Deutsche Welle, for example, Zoe Sherman, a lecturer at Merrimack College, referred to TV hosts like the late Russ Limbaugh conspiracy-theory promoter Alex Jones as 'ideological entrepreneurs'—people who monetize people'ss fears or beliefs, and sell ideology for profit.

So Who Are We Really Talking To?

So who are we really talking to? It's probably not who you think.

To compete in a crowded DR space, content is become ever more extreme for clickbait to stand out (and earn a few more dollars). As DEs search for trending topics, U.S. voters are viciously targeted, especially in swing states. DEs are not alone in weaponizing lies; attempted Russian interference in the 2024 election has been well documented. The threat of disinformation shared via social media has, in fact, emerged with such force that NATO now considers it to be cognitive warfare.

This is a threat that, ironically, unites voters on both side of the aisle.

Fighting the Threat

So how do we stop being targeted?

One immediate strategy is to stop consuming political content on social media, because that is where most disinformation is currently shared.

Alternatively, we can simply go straight to the source: Watch the speech, read the transcript, research the law, and don't rely on social-media commenters to educate us.

We have a right to get angry, not necessarily at rival voters but at the idea that there is an industry of DEs out there, right now, manipulating us and our political system for profit. Their words might ultimately alter our political world. Yet we are the ones left to handle the consequences while the DEs simply move on to the next monetizable trending topic.

Ultimately, perhaps the best strategy is to simply enjoy the entertainment of an outrageous post.

Just don't cast a vote off the back of it.

This post is an adapted extract from the forthcoming Post Truth Politics: A Brave New World (in press) by Dr. Elesa Zehndorfer, published by Routledge.