The Business of Disinformation: Who Profits From the Lies?

Disinformation is now a thriving enterprise rather than merely a social issue. According to a growing body of research, including studies from the Reuters Institute and the Oxford Internet Institute, misinformation networks use user attention as a weapon to generate unlimited profits.

Social media sites are at the center of this ecosystem because their algorithms value engagement over accuracy, making it easier for falsehoods to spread. These platforms are not passive channels; they profit from sensational content while frequently disregarding its truthfulness.

Figure B below illustrates this reality, which is reinforced by the World Economic Forum’s Global Risks Report 2025. The report names misinformation and disinformation as a primary, urgent global concern and highlights how digital platforms are increasingly monetizing attention at the expense of accuracy.

How Social Media Platforms Thrive on User Attention

Social media sites such as Facebook, Instagram and TikTok intentionally gather behavioral data from every interaction to optimize user engagement and turn online behavior into a valuable resource. With a predicted annual growth rate (CAGR 2025-2029) of 8.3%, this trend is propelling the digital advertising sector, which is expected to reach a market size of $483.55 billion by 2029.

Hyper-targeted advertisements made possible by advanced artificial intelligence and machine learning keep consumers engaged and encourage marketers to make significant investments in audience segmentation. This economic strategy, however, prioritizes sensational or emotionally charged content over factual information because the latter draws less engagement. As a result, algorithms are more likely to spread false information, conspiracies and deceptive messages. This benefits platforms by increasing clicks and time spent online, while advertisers unintentionally fuel the spread of misinformation by prioritizing interaction and debate over truth and accuracy.

Influencers and Hidden Ads: What You Need To Know

Influencers are regularly compensated to support goods, concepts or viewpoints; they usually disguise these endorsements as lifestyle or personal perspectives. Audiences are often unaware that they are consuming advertising because many of these promos lack explicit notice.

This hazy distinction between paid advertising and genuine expression affects credibility and makes it challenging for consumers to spot deception. The hidden nature of such content weakens media literacy and makes people more susceptible to false or biased narratives.

Consumers could unintentionally absorb information intended to change their opinions and actions. This behavior contributes to the greater problem of disinformation by normalizing hidden persuasion strategies.

For example, in May 2025, Nguyen Thuc Thuy Tien, the Vietnamese beauty queen, was jailed for fraud involving fiber gummies. Together with Pham Quang Linh and Hang Du Muc, two social media personalities, Ms. Nguyen marketed Kera Supergreens Gummies. According to investigators, Ms. Nguyen and a business founded by the two other influencers collaborated to promote the product. According to the influencers, each of their gummies contains the same amount of fiber as an entire serving of vegetables. After that, authorities opened an inquiry and discovered that the gummies were made using inferior, low-fiber ingredients.

Another incident occurred in Milan on January 29. Italian fashion blogger Chiara Ferragni was sent to trial by Milan prosecutors on Wednesday on fraud accusations related to allegedly false charity claims connected to sales of Easter eggs and a Christmas cake, according to her attorneys and court sources.

The trial was scheduled to begin on September 23 in a Milan court. For crimes like fraud, prosecutors can set a trial date under Italian law without first asking the judge for a preliminary hearing. Almost 1.1 million euros ($1.14 million) was penalized by Italy’s antitrust regulator (AGCM) in 2023 for selling Pandoro Christmas cakes under the Ferragni brand with packaging that referenced a children’s hospital. Ferragni has almost 29 million Instagram followers. Last year, she also consented to settle the dispute over sales of Easter eggs bearing the Ferragni name by giving a children’s charity at least 1.2 million euros.

Experts advocate for stricter laws and more precise disclosure standards to safeguard consumers and preserve the integrity of internet information. Transparency is required to rebuild trust and give people the ability to critically assess material. Without it, paid promotions risk further twisting public opinion.

How Global Networks Spread Fake News

Disinformation is sometimes a well-planned effort that originates from spam efforts to maximize profit. To maximize reach and engagement, these organizations build and oversee extensive networks of fake accounts that spread misleading information designed to go viral.

The primary goal of these projects is to generate a significant quantity of ad income by utilizing algorithms that reward high interaction rates. These disinformation networks affect people's emotions and spread their message more widely by taking advantage of political tensions, societal anxieties and popular social problems.

A seemingly straightforward, isolated message is frequently only a single component of a bigger, strategically driven disinformation campaign. These concerted initiatives blur the distinction between authentic public discourse and fabricated narratives, making it more challenging for consumers to separate reality from fiction.

These spam factories' financial motivations highlight how disinformation has become a rewarding international industry. Understanding these mechanisms is essential to creating effective remedies against the dissemination of misleading information.

According to José van Dijck, a professor of media and digital society at Utrecht University, money is the most common incentive for disseminating false information online, even when it also serves other (political) goals. Van Dijck contends, "We must comprehend the twisted financial incentives and the larger infrastructure that facilitates disinformation if we are serious about combating it." The issue, in her opinion, is not so much with fake news, they have always been around, but rather with the state of the information ecosystem today and how susceptible it has become to misinformation.

Understanding the Global Disinformation Economy

Due to social media platforms’ algorithms that value interaction over accuracy, disinformation has grown into a very rewarding global industry that amplifies sensational and inaccurate content for financial advantage.

Influencers, who are frequently paid without providing clear disclosure, further blur the distinction between paid promotion and real opinion, deteriorating media literacy and trust. Meanwhile, coordinated networks of fake accounts, usually run by foreign spam entities, take advantage of public anxieties and political unrest to disseminate viral false information and make a sizable profit from advertisements. This network includes extreme media, political operators and advertising, all of whom profit from the division and instability caused by misinformation. False narratives have a significant financial impact on markets, public opinion and societal integration.

Instagram content controversy reveals how social media companies prioritize profit and user engagement over safety, turning shock-driven content into currency in the attention economy, even at the cost of truth and public well-being. The public was outraged by Meta’s Instagram in early 2025 as people complained that their Reels feeds were overflowing with graphic, violent and unsettling images. Instagram’s algorithm, which is meant to increase engagement, seemed to prioritize shock value over safety when it came to images of people dying, animals being mistreated and violent incidents. The sad summary provided by one Reddit member was, “I just saw at least 10 people die on my reels.”

Distancing itself from its recent decision to rescind its content moderation procedures, which included eliminating fact-checkers and significantly decreasing monitoring, Meta attributed the occurrence to a technical problem. Critics counter that this reversal is a reflection of a more serious problem: social media sites like Instagram profit off emotional material, whether it is damaging or untrue. Even traumatic or deceptive content can be made profitable in a setting where scrolling time is equivalent to profit.

Although Meta asserts that its policies forbid excessively violent content, the algorithmic flaw and the business’s financial interests show a conflict of interest. Users will remain interested in material longer if it is more sensational or graphic, which increases ad revenue. The Molly Rose Foundation and other internet safety organizations have demanded responsibility, particularly in light of the platform’s failure to safeguard minors, pointing to the tragic instance of Molly Russell. In the end, the story serves as a clear reminder that outrage is frequently the tactic, and attention is the end result. Even gruesome content can be used as currency in a system that rewards virality.

Notwithstanding assertions of impartiality, tech firms benefit from this system, underscoring the pressing need for stricter laws, greater openness and AI-powered tools to identify and combat lies. In an increasingly divided global context, addressing this challenge is essential to preserving democratic processes, market stability and the integrity of public discourse.

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