Outside

the United States,

journalists have uncovered groups of
entrepreneurs in Macedonia and elsewhere proﬁting by selling advertisements
running alongside disinformation catering to right-wing readers online (Tynan
2016; Subramanian 2017). Stories included “news” of Pope Francis endorsing
then-candidate Trump and fabricated reports of the candidate slapping a
protestor at a campaign rally (Subramanian 2017). These sites sometimes
acted as an ampliﬁer rather than an originator of disinformation, copying
content from other sites online and promoting them through swarms of fake
accounts on social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook (Subramanian
2017).

https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108890960 Published online by Cambridge University Press

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Tim Hwang
Social_Media_and_Democracy