[noodle]

Yes. For example, I was a mod on a larger tech related subreddit (trying to keep it generic) that was a critical part of my tech stack and daily work at the time. The mods above me would regularly promote their POV on certain topics and do various things to demote/remove the things that they disagreed with. In this way, the community artificially seemed to be more in favor of particular directions on certain topics.

Did this have any material impact? I don't know. But its an example where a set of random people can at least try to leverage their position for more than just "some laughs". Its one example of what I mean about "influence peddling".

[randomdata]

Perhaps I am missing some nuance, but that still seems like "some laughs" and, more importantly, not done in good faith. I get that they weren't audibly laughing, but it seems they were stroking some kind of emotional pleasure centre, choosing bad faith to feel it.

[noodle]

I can't really speak for the motivations of those people, but I don't consider potential direct financial gain to be "some laughs".

[slowmovintarget]

The words we typically use are "malfeasance," "corruption," and "conflict of interest."