Joining me on this week’s episode is Craig Silverman, a reporter at Buzzfeed, who along with two of his colleagues in January wrote one of the most chilling articles I have read in a while, “Disinformation for Hire: How a New Breed of PR Firms is Selling Lies Online”. I wanted to have him as a guest to discuss the article and its implications for communication professionals and society.
I encourage everyone to go to Buzzfeed and read the article, but can you give us a synopsis of what your research found?
This actually is an article that was roughly about a year in the making. Myself and my colleague Jane Lytvynenko at Buzzfeed News, focus on disinformation and the broader umbrella of digital media manipulation. That includes search engine manipulation, digital advertising fraud, bots, trolls, all that kind of stuff.
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