Tech insiders and experts expose the dark side of the wildly lucrative social media business.
By Denise Clifton in Mother Jones
As billions in earnings continue to flow for the corporate titans of social media, so does a tide of false and malicious content across their global networks. This dual phenomenon is no coincidence: The growth of the platforms and the spread of misinformation and propaganda are entangled at the core of the business models for Facebook, Twitter, and other leading tech companies, according to a range of experts.
Now, a reckoning may be looming as repercussions continue to come to light, from the use of Facebook in ethnic cleansing campaigns in Myanmar to the exploitation of Twitter and Facebook to distort the politics of US elections.