[kevingadd]

If your goal is just to monetize your website (via ads or perhaps sponsored content), manipulation doesn't really seem like it's in your wheelhouse. I suppose it's not utterly implausible that a political party or other major player could attempt to pay off an outlet's owners to use them for manipulation, but that seems a lot more expensive than just astroturfing on twitter and facebook.

One notable counter-example to my POV though would be that the Koch family has a tendency to hand big chunks of money to think-tanks, websites and universities for promoting their agenda. Not really sure what the best take-away from that is, though.