Trolls for hire: Investigation finds online smear campaigns can be bought for as little as $8 for a post or $1,500 for two week campaign
- Disinformation campaigns are ‘alarmingly simple and inexpensive’ to buy
- Researchers hired online trolls to both smear and praise a fake company
- Negative news costs more than twice as much as positive news
A new report shows how easily and cheaply trolls can be hired to spread disinformation online.
Researchers created a fictional company and hired the services of two different disinformation providers, one to spread positive stories and social media posts about the company and another to publicly undermine it.
The services range from $8 for social media posts to $1,500 for SEO services that ensure disinformation posts rank higher in searches.
Researchers were alarmed at how easy and inexpensive it is to buy online disinformation campaigns.
The positive media campaign cost only $1,850, while negative media campaign cost $4,200.
“Both of these companies, their bread and butter is negative takedown stuff—discrediting your opponent or competitor,” Researcher Roman Sannikov told ArsTechnica.
“But they can also promote companies, using the same networks of social media accounts.”
Researchers say the found these disinformation services through ‘publicly available on the underground criminal forums, and accessible to private sector clients — not only nation-states.’
‘These services are affordable and customizable.’
‘Their operators work in teams to publish articles on media websites and to propagate that material throughout social media accounts under their direct control.’
Disinformation providers will provide either positive or negative stories, whatever the client wants.
Researchers created a fictitious company, Tyrell Corporation, which was also the name of the corporation that produced replicants in the 1982 science fiction film Blade Runner.
The positive campaign researchers bought for Tyrell Corporation would include creating Facebook and LinkedIn accounts to post about the company, a monthly social media marketing campaign, and comments on articles about the company sold in bundles of 10 for $100.
The disinformation provider listed 50 different UK-based publications which it allegedly promised it could place stories in, ranging from $180 to $49,440 for more reputable news outlets.
Researchers concluded that ‘launching a disinformation campaign is alarmingly simple and inexpensive.’
