Mohamed Suliman is a senior disinformation researcher at the Northeastern University Civic AI Lab

After Russia invaded Ukraine, some young Americans created scam Instagram accounts that shared videos and photos about the unfolding events. Pretending to be journalists on the ground, they attracted millions of followers and profited from the ads placed on their pages before they were taken down. It was not an isolated incident; the opportunity to monetise by misleading is the basis of a massive fake news market.