Influence-for-hire orcollective influence, refers to the economy that has emerged around buying and sellinginfluence onsocial media platforms.^[1]

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Behavioural influences
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Companies that engage in the influence-for-hire industry range fromcontent farms to high-endpublic relations agencies. Traditionallyinfluence 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]

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

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

In August 2021, a report published by theAustralian Strategic Policy Institute implicated theChinese government and the rulingChinese Communist Party in campaigns of online manipulation conducted againstAustralia andTaiwan using influence-for-hire.^{[7][8][9][10]}

• Social influence
• Media manipulation
• Internet manipulation and propaganda
• Social media

• Articles with short description
• Short description matches Wikidata
• Use mdy dates from October 2023