The Internet, Ad-Supported Business Models, and the Amplification of Disinformation (Policy Brief No. 4)

Raad's policy brief maps how algorithmic design, cognitive biases, and platform ad-supported business models are synergistically exploited in influence operations to compromise freedom of thought — providing one of the clearest available explanations of why the information environment is structurally favourable to disinformation irrespective of any specific state actor's intentions. The brief applies the DISARM and RICHDATA conceptual frameworks to this analysis, connecting operational FIMI methodology to the structural platform dynamics that amplify its effects.

The regulatory agenda the brief proposes — covering data collection law, data brokerage regulation, social media oversight, and media literacy — is comprehensive without being utopian. It is grounded in the structural analysis that precedes it, which makes the connection between regulatory intervention and expected effect clearer than in most reform proposals. For practitioners and policymakers making the case for platform structural reform as a counter-FIMI measure — rather than just content moderation — this brief provides a rigorous analytical foundation.