ABC investigation: Meta paying far-right creators, neo-Nazis for engagement
ABC News Verify found Meta directly monetizing accounts with neo-Nazi links and anti-vaccine spreaders through its Content Monetization program.
Conversation activity · last 10 hours peak 3/15m
Summary, timeline and people extracted by Claude from 32 items across 3 sources · 4h ago. Quotes are verbatim.
An ABC News Verify investigation discovered that Meta is directly paying controversial content creators—including a white nationalist with neo-Nazi links, anti-vaccine activists, and far-right news outlets—through its Content Monetization program, despite their content violating Meta's own policies. Meta responded by saying it is "not Meta's role to police offensiveness" and that it has "clear policies" monetisation tools must comply with.
- Meta directly monetizes at least four controversial accounts with neo-Nazi links and misinformation through its Content Monetization program, distributing nearly $3 billion to 16.2 million accounts in 2025.
- Meta acknowledges having policies but refuses to enforce them against offensiveness or policy violations, stating 'it is not Meta's role to police offensiveness.'
- The core issue is algorithmic amplification: Meta's engagement-based model inherently incentivizes rage-bait because anger drives clicks and profit, regardless of content accuracy or harm.
- Commenters debate whether this represents new discovery or repackaging of work by independent journalists already documenting far-right content mills.
How it unfolded
-
Multiple commenters argue the real problem is not that Meta commissioned the content but that the platform's algorithm amplifies rage-bait because it drives engagement and profit, and Meta tolerates policy violations to maximize both.
“The egregious part is the amplification part. Profit derives from that.”
mc32 · Hacker News ↗ -
Reaction Journalist credit concerns raised
Commenter points out that independent journalist Tom Tanuki had already documented far-right content mills, and questions whether ABC's report represents genuinely new findings or repackaging of existing work.
“taking a lot of the boots on the ground work that Tom Tanuki...has done with these far right slopaganda mills, slicing off the prior recognition”
florkbork · Hacker News ↗ -
Story gains traction on Hacker News with 278 points and 154 comments. Commenters debate whether Meta is actively commissioning the content or simply monetizing what creators upload, with some clarifying that the platform's algorithmic amplification is the real issue.
“The title makes it sound like meta is commissioning the content? I don't think that is the case here? Or is it?”
mattlondon · Hacker News ↗ -
ABC News Verify publishes investigation finding that Meta is directly paying several controversial content creators including neo-Nazis and anti-vaxxers, with content appearing to violate Meta's own monetization policies.
“it is not Meta's role to police offensiveness”
Meta · Hacker News ↗ - 35 weeks quiet
-
A page promoting the anti-immigration group March for Australia, which has close ties to neo-Nazis, registers for the monetization program.
- 4 weeks quiet
-
The Noticer, a far-right Australian news website regularly promoting white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideologies, registers for Facebook's monetization program.
- 9 weeks quiet
-
White nationalist Hugo Lennon, who has neo-Nazi links and was formally moved on by Victoria Police for shouting racist abuse at Indian PM Narendra Modi, begins receiving revenue through Facebook's Content Monetization program.
What people are saying verbatim
“it is not Meta's role to police offensiveness”
Meta, Platform statement · ABC News Verify ↗
“The title makes it sound like meta is commissioning the content? I don't think that is the case here? Or is it?”
mattlondon, Hacker News commenter · Hacker News ↗
“The egregious part is the amplification part. Profit derives from that.”
mc32, Hacker News commenter · Hacker News ↗
“It almost feels funny how bluesky and other platforms lack this sorta rage bait being prioritized. Facebook and friends sold us out hard and made society suffer.”
wookmaster, Hacker News commenter · Hacker News ↗
“Facebook figured out a long time ago that "ragebait" and profit are transitively connected via "engagement".”
superxpro12, Hacker News commenter · Hacker News ↗
“taking a lot of the boots on the ground work that Tom Tanuki...has done with these far right slopaganda mills, slicing off the prior recognition”
florkbork, Hacker News commenter · Hacker News ↗
“Just to fund, transmit, amplify, protect, and profit from it.”
wpietri, Hacker News commenter · Hacker News ↗
The conversation positions from the crowd, verbatim
The conversation splits between those who see this as confirmation of long-suspected platform complicity in extremism, and those who argue the headline is misleading about Meta's active role. Many commenters identify the real mechanism: algorithmic amplification for engagement profit, not direct commissioning. Several note this echoes patterns documented years earlier (Cambridge Analytica, COVID fact-checking removal) and ask why nothing has changed.
The dispute Whether Meta is actively commissioning extremist content (headline implication) or simply monetizing and amplifying content that creators upload (actual mechanism), and whether this represents new discovery or confirmation of long-documented business-model dynamics.
Meta's business model inherently rewards rage-bait and extremism through engagement-based amplification; the platform amplifies, funds, and profits from divisive content while hiding behind policy language.
-
“The egregious part is the amplification part. Profit derives from that.”
mc32 · Hacker News ↗ -
“Facebook figured out a long time ago that "ragebait" and profit are transitively connected via "engagement".”
superxpro12 · Hacker News ↗ -
“Facebook and friends sold us out hard and made society suffer. Stop using their services.”
wookmaster · Hacker News ↗
The headline overstates Meta's role; they are not commissioning extremist content but simply monetizing what creators upload, which is a different problem than active recruitment.
-
“The title makes it sound like meta is commissioning the content? I don't think that is the case here? Or is it?”
mattlondon · Hacker News ↗ -
“So the issue is less that they're specifically paying these far-right figures. They're paying anyone who generates popular content. The issue is that they're not enforcing their own policies against these figures.”
Mastodon discussion excerpt · Mastodon ↗
This is not new; similar patterns have been documented for years (Cambridge Analytica, COVID fact-checking removal), suggesting structural indifference rather than recent discovery.
-
“This isn't anything new, it was abundantly clear after Facebook removed their fact checking team during covid that the priority was engagement over everything else.”
bilekas · Hacker News ↗ -
“taking a lot of the boots on the ground work that Tom Tanuki...has done with these far right slopaganda mills, slicing off the prior recognition and pretending it's a big new problem they just found.”
florkbork · Hacker News ↗
- Is Meta directly commissioning this rage-bait content, or simply monetizing what creators upload?
- Why hasn't Meta's behavior changed despite years of documented harms and multiple scandals (Cambridge Analytica, COVID, etc.)?
- How much of this ABC investigation represents genuinely new findings versus repackaging of work by independent journalists already documenting these far-right content mills?
Voices from the web unedited
-
Meta, sta pagando direttamente diversi creatori di contenuti controversi, tra cui un nazionalista bianco con legami neonazisti e un famoso novax Lo ha scoperto un'indagine di ABC NEWS Verify: i contenuti prodotti da questi creatori sembrano, a volte, violare direttamente le politiche di # Facebook sulla monetizzazione dei contenuti. "Hugo Lennon è…
-
I'm not surprised, I quit because I kept getting pushed this content for a long while and suspected as much. Same is happening on nextdoor for sure, whenever I login there's some pushed post that creates a bunch of engagement of someone stating something very political and controversial. It almost feels funny how bluesky and other platforms lack…
-
🌗 臉書遭爆付費給爭議性創作者，資助其產出煽動憤怒的內容 ➤ 揭露社羣巨頭營利機制如何成為極端言論與陰謀論的資金溫牀 ✤ https://www. abc.net.au/news/2026-08-06/rag ebait-how-facebook-is-paying-controversial-creators/106940696 澳洲廣播公司（ABC）的調查報導指出，臉書母公司 Meta 正透過其「內容變現」計畫，直接向多位推廣極端主義、白人至上主義及反疫苗陰謀論的爭議性創作者支付廣告分潤。調查顯示，儘管這些創作者的內容明顯違反臉書自身對於社會爭議議題和醫療不實訊息的營利政策，Meta…
-
I will call out the ABC here for taking a lot of the boots on the ground work that Tom Tanuki - independent journo (https://youtube.com/@tomtanuki) has done with these far right slopaganda mills, slicing off the prior recognition and pretending it's a big new problem they just found. While a bit of this is new... Is it that new? Is this report…
-
Facebook is paying far-right agitators to produce rage-bait content https://www. byteseu.com/2268009/ # Technology
-
I would drop Facebook in a heartbeat but Facebook Marketplace is a strong pull for getting bargains in my local area.I have alternatives like eBay and Gumtree but they have their own shortcomings.Examples from Facebook:- Antique lumber planks 50p a plank- 4 sticks of DDR4 16GB SODIMMs, £60- Garden tools, £10This stuff would be slower and more…
-
Meta have long profited from knowingly aiding and abetting the enemies of the West by undermining our societies from within.Meta are the greatest force against freedom in the world today, apart from Putin's post-fascist power vertical and the Chinese Communist Party.What I think of Mark Zuckerberg unfortunately cannot be printed, because unlike…
-
TV and movie violence, gangster rap. Those are actually funded, transmitted, protected and profited from by big media companies, and have had a massive influence for decades.Meta doesn't fund the stuff people put there, they profit from it. There is an important difference between those things, which outraged-baited hackers pretend to not…
-
I think this is a bit misleading.It sounds to me like the creators are creating and uploading the content, and then that is getting monetised on the platform?The title makes it sound like meta is commissioning the content? I don't think that is the case here? Or is it?Directly commissioning someone to create it is pretty wild.
-
There is no solution based on censorship that doesn't undermine democracy. If you want Facebook to censor people/content/ideas that you don't like it is going also to censor vital information needed for a democracy to work.The best solution for now seams to be what twitter is doing with community notes.