Production of Disinformation

Because of the nature of disinformation, inquiry into its producers has been
limited; those who intend to mislead others also tend to mask their identity.1
Scholarship addressing producers has focused on a few key groups that have
distorted the information ecosystem in recent years. These include Macedonian
teenagers publishing pro-Trump fake news during the 2016 election, the

1 In this section, we focus on disinformation rather than misinformation writ large because

“production” implies an element of intent inherent in our deﬁnition of the former.

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

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Andrew M. Guess & Benjamin A. Lyons
Social_Media_and_Democracy