The politics are entirely divorced from the profit making
Across the digital landscape of Australian political life, a quiet extraction has been taking place: foreign content creators in Southeast Asia and India have been building and administering large pro-One Nation Facebook groups, not out of political conviction, but as monetized engagement farms. Guardian Australia's examination of 14 major groups found that outrage-driven 'poll bait'—much of it AI-generated and laced with Islamophobic themes—was being used to harvest real Australian political feeling and convert it into foreign income through Meta's creator programs. The Australians commenting and reacting were genuine; the hands collecting the revenue were thousands of kilometers away. It is a parable of the attention economy: grievance as commodity, division as a revenue stream, and a platform whose incentives make it difficult to distinguish authentic political community from profitable simulation.
- Foreign digital creators in Indonesia and India are quietly running some of Australia's largest pro-One Nation Facebook groups, treating domestic political anger as a monetizable resource.
- The content is engineered for maximum reaction — AI-generated Islamophobic imagery, yes-or-no 'poll bait' questions, and posts replicated across multiple groups to maximize views and earnings.
- One fraudulent account impersonated a sitting One Nation MP, moderated at least eight groups, and promoted cryptocurrency schemes to real Australian followers before being removed only after press inquiry.
- Meta's creator monetization programs are the financial engine: one creator's screenshot showed Meta paying $20 for two posts reaching 50,000 people, with earnings dashboards displayed in Indonesian.
- The platform's response has been reactive and narrow, removing flagged content on request while leaving the structural question — how foreign operations profit from Australian political division — entirely unresolved.
When researchers began examining the largest pro-One Nation Facebook groups, they found something unexpected: most weren't run by Australians at all. Guardian Australia's analysis of 14 groups — each with at least 8,000 members — found the majority had been created recently and were administered from overseas, primarily by people based in Indonesia and India who identified themselves as digital creators. Digital media researcher Timothy Graham described them as 'engagement farm' operations: infrastructure built to harvest real Australian audiences and convert their attention into profit.
The mechanics were deliberate. Administrators monetized content through Facebook's creator programs, earning revenue based on views and engagement. One group with more than 117,000 members was run by administrators whose profiles indicated they were based in Southeast Asia. Some posted screenshots from Meta's backend — earnings charts in Indonesian, complaints about slow months, breakdowns of Australian audience reach. The content followed a reliable formula: outrage and 'poll bait.' Posts asked provocative yes-or-no questions, many replicated across multiple groups, much of it AI-generated, including images of women in niqabs asking whether Australians wanted them deported.
Professor Crystal Abidin of Curtin University explained the underlying economics: for these operations, politics and profit were entirely separate. A meme factory might be one person with multiple devices or dozens of people coordinating through group chats — the scale varied, but the principle held. Australian political engagement was being converted into foreign income, with the antagonism itself serving as the product.
One group administrator claimed to be David Farley, the One Nation MP who won the Farrer byelection in May. The account used photos from Farley's real campaign page while promoting cryptocurrency schemes and AI-generated Hanson content, and it moderated at least eight One Nation-related groups. One Nation's media adviser acknowledged that party members had been impersonated on Facebook for years. The account was removed only after Guardian Australia contacted Meta.
What the investigation revealed was coordinated foreign influence operating inside Australian political discourse, funded by the platform itself. The commenters were real. The grievances were real. But the people deciding what to amplify, and collecting the money, were elsewhere entirely — and the question of how to stop them remains, for now, unanswered.
When researchers at Queensland University of Technology began examining the largest pro-One Nation Facebook groups, they found something unexpected: most of them weren't run by Australian supporters at all. Guardian Australia's analysis of 14 of the biggest groups—each with at least 8,000 members—revealed that the majority had been created recently and were being administered from overseas by people tagged as digital creators, many of them based in Indonesia and India. These weren't grassroots political communities. They were what digital media researcher Timothy Graham called "engagement farm" operations, designed to harvest real Australian audiences and turn them into profit.
The mechanics were straightforward. Administrators and top posters in these groups were monetizing content through Facebook's creator programs, which allow certain types of posts to generate revenue based on views and engagement. One of the largest groups, with more than 117,000 members, was run by at least two administrators whose personal profiles indicated they spoke Indonesian and were based in south-east Asia. On their own pages, some of these creators posted screenshots from Meta's backend—charts in Indonesian showing their content's popularity in Australia, earnings breakdowns, complaints about slow months. One creator shared a screenshot showing Meta would pay $20 for two posts that reached 50,000 people. The content itself followed a predictable formula: outrage and what Graham termed "poll bait." Posts asked yes-or-no questions designed to provoke reaction: "Was Pauline Hanson right to scold this journo?" or "Should Sharia law be banned in Australia?" Many posts were replicated across multiple groups, sometimes by the same accounts. Much of it was AI-generated, including images of women in niqabs asking whether Australians wanted them deported—a theme that appeared across several groups. The content harvested real Australian engagement from genuine accounts, but the people running the operation were somewhere else entirely, collecting money.
Crystal Abidin, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University who has researched digital creator economies in south-east Asia, explained the economics plainly: for these meme factories, politics were entirely divorced from profit-making. They were for hire. Accounts might use political posts to demonstrate their reach to potential brand partners, to grow followers and subscribers, or to personally profit through Meta's monetization schemes. The antagonism itself was lucrative. Outrage, trolling, content people couldn't look away from—these generated clicks and views. A meme factory could be one person working from a bedroom with multiple devices, or dozens of people coordinating through group chats, sharing images and strategies about how to reach different audiences. The scale and sophistication varied, but the principle remained the same: Australian political engagement converted into foreign income.
One group administrator claimed to be David Farley, the One Nation federal MP who won the Farrer byelection in May. The account, created on May 30, used photos from Farley's campaign Facebook page but promoted a financial scheme advising people to withdraw assets from "crashing banks" and invest in cryptocurrency instead. It also shared AI-generated content supporting Pauline Hanson. This account moderated at least eight public Facebook groups related to One Nation, including two of the largest that Guardian Australia examined, as well as several smaller groups with as few as 16 members, including one targeting One Nation supporters in South Australia. When Guardian Australia contacted One Nation's media adviser Richard Henderson by phone, he said party members had been impersonated on Facebook for "years and years" but declined to respond further to media queries. The impersonated Farley account was removed after Guardian Australia approached Meta for comment.
What emerged from the investigation was a picture of coordinated foreign influence operating at scale within Australian political discourse, monetized through the platforms themselves. The genuine Australian commenters providing engagement and outrage were real. The audiences were real. The political content was designed to appeal to real Australian grievances and divisions. But the people running the operation, collecting the money, and deciding what content to amplify were based thousands of kilometers away, treating Australian politics as a profit center. Meta's response was limited: a spokesperson said the company was reviewing the content and would remove anything violating its policies. The broader question—how to prevent foreign digital operations from harvesting Australian political engagement for profit—remained unanswered.
Citas Notables
The operation harvests a real Australian audience for engagement and money— Timothy Graham, digital media researcher at Queensland University of Technology
For a lot of the south-east Asian meme factories, the politics are entirely divorced from the profit making. They are for hire.— Crystal Abidin, professor of internet studies at Curtin University
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why does it matter that these groups are run from overseas rather than by actual One Nation supporters?
Because it changes what's being amplified. A genuine supporter might post about policy disagreements. These operations are algorithmically optimized for outrage—they're designed to make people angry because anger drives engagement, and engagement drives money. They're not trying to build a movement; they're trying to maximize clicks.
But the commenters are real Australians, right? So isn't the engagement authentic?
The engagement is real, but it's being harvested. Real people are reacting to content designed specifically to provoke them, often content that's been AI-generated or copied across multiple groups. The authenticity of the audience is being weaponized by people who don't care about the politics at all.
How much money are we talking about here?
The screenshots show individual posts earning $20 for 50,000 views. Scale that across hundreds of posts per week across multiple groups with hundreds of thousands of members, and you're looking at substantial income. But the real value is in the reach—these operations use political engagement to build audiences they can then sell to brands or use for other monetization schemes.
Why would Meta allow this?
Meta's monetization programs are designed to reward engagement. The platform doesn't distinguish between engagement driven by genuine political interest and engagement driven by algorithmic manipulation. As long as the content technically complies with policies, the money flows. The impersonation of David Farley was removed, but that was only because Guardian Australia exposed it.
What's the actual harm here?
It's the distortion of political discourse. Real Australians are being fed a steady diet of outrage-optimized content designed by people who have no stake in Australian politics and no interest in truth. It's not that the content is false—it's that it's been engineered to inflame rather than inform. And the people profiting from that inflammation are invisible.