Disintermediation involves the now widespread social practice of being informed without any filter, that is to say through direct contact with information circulated via mass or social media. With no intermediary – i.e. an authoritative source to validate the content – between consumer and producer of information, the risk of successfully disseminating fake news increases. In this context, emotions or radical content are used as powerful propaganda weapons.
– ‘Social network analysis, social big data and conspiracy theories’, in Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories (2020), p. 141