THE BLACK MARKET FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MANIPULATION
THE BLACK MARKET FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MANIPULATION

Author(s): Author Not Specified
Contributor(s): Anna Reynolds (Editor)
Subject(s): Economy, Media studies, Security and defense, Social Informatics, ICT Information and Communications Technologies
Published by: NATO Strategic Communications Centre of Excellence
Keywords: social media manipulation; black market; financial benefits; Internet; online market; information warfare;
Summary/Abstract: Around the turn of the decade, when the popularity of social media sites was really beginning to take off, few people noticed a secretly burgeoning trend — some users were artificially inflating the number of followers they had on social media to reap financial benefits. Even fewer noticed that organizations such as the Internet Research Agency were exploiting these new techniques for political gain. Only when this innovation in information warfare was deployed against Ukraine in 2014 did the world finally become aware of a practice that has now exploded into federal indictments, congressional hearings, and a European Union Code of Practice on Disinformation.

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