The Dangers of Money and Corporate Power Relating to Online Disinformation

Social media platforms can serve as a conduit and magnifier of disinformation, and people's willingness to believe disinformation can have a major deleterious affect on a democratic society. Additionally, the potential motivations for the spread of disinformation is not always clear, making the situation more difficult to rectify. In this paper, we will go into detail regarding the nature of disinformation campaigns, how social media platforms obfuscate the issue, where they have been spotted in the wild including a case study regarding a proposed real estate development whose developers utilized disinformation in order to attempt to subvert local democratic order. Through this, we wish to shine a light on how a social media platform can become an amplifier for disinformation either through conspiratorial content, or through the utilization of monetary resources.