Influence-for-hire

Influence-for-hire or collective influence, refers to the economy that has emerged around buying and selling influence on social media platforms.^[1]

Overview

Companies that engage in the influence-for-hire industry range from content farms to high-end public relations agencies. Traditionally influence operations have largely been confined to public sector actors like intelligence agencies, in the influence-for-hire industry the groups conduction the operations are private with commerce being their primary consideration.^[2] However many of the clients in the influence-for-hire industry are countries or countries acting through proxies.^[1] They are often located in countries with less expensive digital labor.^[3]

History

In May 2021, Facebook took a Ukrainian influence-for-hire network offline. Facebook attributed the network to organizations and consultants linked to Ukrainian politicians including Andriy Derkach.^[4][5]

During the COVID-19 pandemic state sponsored misinformation was spread through influence-for-hire networks.^[6]

In August 2021, a report published by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute implicated the Chinese government and the ruling Chinese Communist Party in campaigns of online manipulation conducted against Australia and Taiwan using influence-for-hire.^{[7][8][9][10]}

See also

• Creator economy
• Cultural technology
• Hype (marketing)
• Influencer marketing
• Personal branding
• Reputation system
• Shill
• Social commerce
• Social media marketing
• Social profiling
• Viral marketing