Is your feed flooded with AI slop? That’s no accident: social media platforms are paying for it 💸
Monetization programs on major platforms are fueling a booming industry of AI-generated political clickbait aimed at audiences in Europe and around the world.
Profit-driven freelancers and companies in countries such as Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan use easily accessible AI tools to flood users’ feeds with deepfakes of politicians and journalists. These tools are also used to fabricate news impersonations and create inflammatory narratives.
🔍 In the largest public investigation of platform monetization, Reset Tech examines the business model behind this content across Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok.
📊 The findings reveal that anonymous accounts routinely get monetized.
⚠️ Additionally, all three platforms disregard their own policies on CIB, engagement baiting, spam, AI content, hate speech, and misinformation by granting monetization status to dubious creators.
Speaker: Aleksandra Atanasova, Reset Tech
Aleksandra is Reset Tech’s open-source intelligence (OSINT) lead. Her research interests focus on state-sponsored influence operations, digital advertising, scams, and the evolving tactics of online threat actors. Prior to joining Reset Tech, she worked as a digital marketing consultant and data analyst, managing projects for EU institutions, government bodies, and private-sector clients.
Moderator: Raquel Miguel Serrano, Senior Researcher, EU DisinfoLab
Raquel Miguel Serrano is a senior researcher at EU DisinfoLab. She has a background in journalism and spent most of her professional career working for the German press agency DPA until 2019, when she shifted her focus to disinformation. Raquel earned a Master’s degree in Cyber Intelligence and joined EU DisinfoLab. She is the author of multiple articles, mainly focused on mis- and disinformation circulating in Spain and Germany, but also on more comprehensive topics such as the impact risk of online disinformation or pre-bunking as a tool to counter information disorders. Recently, she has been working in other areas, such as FIMI or the challenges posed by generative AI.
The opinions expressed are those of the speakers/authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of EU DisinfoLab. This webinar does not represent an endorsement by EU DisinfoLab of any organisation.