The Global Economic Impact of Disinformation: Financial, Social and Political Costs

Sopra Steria's March 2026 report addresses one of the most consequential gaps in the disinformation field: the absence of a rigorous quantification of what disinformation actually costs. Applying a methodology modelled on the IPCC's scenario-based approach — with conservative, median, and exploratory scenarios — the report produces the first updated global estimate of disinformation's economic impact for a reference year (2024), breaking costs down across three verticals: financial (fraud, scams, market manipulation), social (institutional trust erosion, social cohesion fragmentation, health impacts), and political (threats to democratic integrity, foreign influence operations, and countermeasures).

The methodological contribution is as significant as the headline figures. By establishing a reproducible protocol that can be updated annually, the report creates the infrastructure for tracking disinformation costs over time — equivalent to what GDP or inflation statistics do for economic measurement. Three structural shifts since the last major cost estimate in 2019 justify the update: the COVID-19 infodemic, the industrialisation of disinformation through generative AI, and the intensification of hybrid warfare. For practitioners making the case for counter-disinformation investment and for policymakers designing regulatory frameworks, having a credible economic cost estimate changes the policy argument fundamentally — it transforms counter-disinformation from a values question into a return-on-investment calculation.