But the campaign’s flirtation with disinformation and its use of paid-for social media to spread his message have also raised questions about the lack of regulation applied to politicians and their campaigns on platforms like Twitter and Instagram.

Bloomberg drew notice among technology experts when he released a spliced-up video of footage from the Nevada Democratic debate last month. The video was intended to capture a question Bloomberg posed to his fellow candidates about him being the only candidate who started a business, but it exaggerated the length of their silence and used clips of their facial reactions from different moments of the debate. The video included crickets to try to signal it was a joke.