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Original article published by Global Disinformation Index on 17 April, 2026.
This report maps the financial flows driving the creation of harmful content across the German digital ecosystem. Across platforms, including websites, social media platforms, and messaging apps, GDI builds on its previous work mapping actors promoting information manipulation campaigns and hate speech in the German ecosystem, looking at the financial profit generated by publishing adversarial content. We found that the dissemination of harmful content can generate significant revenue. Content creators producing harmful online content in German are earning up to €15k per person/account monthly through various financial streams, including advertising, subscriptions, donations, and merchandise. The findings highlight how financial incentives actively sustain and amplify adversarial narratives (including civic integrity, hate speech and bigotry as well as pseudoscience). Additionally, this report identified specific events, such as elections or major geopolitical events, which trigger heightened engagement that goes hand in hand with revenue surges of adversarial content. This report reviews existing legislation and underscores major regulatory gaps to address the monetisation of harmful content.
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Posted by: Nayara Güércio (Trilateral Research)