Facebook isn't just giving these agitators a platform: it's paying them

Facebook is paying controversial creators to produce rage-bait content Thu 6 Aug 2026 at 1:04pm In short: An ABC NEWS Verify investigation has found Facebook's parent company, Meta, is directly paying several controversial content creators including a white nationalist with Neo-Nazi links and a prominent anti-vaxxer. Content produced by these creators appears to be, at times, in direct violation of Facebook's own policies around content monetisation. What's next? Meta would not comment directly on the pages, but said it had "clear policies in place which anyone using our monetisation tools must comply with" and that "it is not Meta's role to police offensiveness". A white nationalist with neo-Nazi links who hurled racist abuse at the Indian prime minister during his visit last month is being paid by Facebook's parent company, Meta, to produce content. An ABC NEWS Verify investigation into several controversial Australian pages on Facebook has found that some are benefiting directly from social media monetisation programs run by Meta. Hugo Lennon is a far-right agitator who was formally moved on by Victoria Police for shouting profanities and racist abuse at Narendra Modi at a Melbourne hotel. He has been receiving revenue through Facebook's "Content Monetization" program since September 2025. Mr Lennon has been photographed with known neo-Nazis and has interacted with them online. His recent Facebook videos include his outburst at the Indian PM, and others referencing white supremacist concepts like replacement theory and remigration. The Noticer, a far-right Australian news website that regularly promotes white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideologies, has been making money through the same Facebook revenue program since November 2025. There is a short period from January 11 to February 15 when it stopped earning money for unknown reasons. The Noticer is currently suspended from its X account with a notice that the account is "temporarily unavailable because it violates the X Hateful Profile Policy". A page promoting the anti-immigration group "March for Australia", which also has close ties to neo-Nazis, registered for the program in December 2025. Monica Smit, the founder of the anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown group Reignite Democracy Australia, joined Facebook's content monetisation program in September 2025. She appears to have been earning advertising revenue through Facebook from as far back as 2017. Her page features vaccine misinformation and promotes the sale of "radiation protection" bracelets through her personal website. Hugo Lennon, Monica Smit, The Noticer and March for Australia did not respond to requests for comment. Invitation only Facebook distributed nearly $US3 billion ($4.27 billion) to an estimated 16.2 million monetised accounts in 2025. Meta has published regular disclosures relating to these "partner-publishers" since 2019. Tech policy and accountability non-profit What To Fix collates this raw data into a searchable archive that was used by ABC NEWS Verify for this investigation. According to Facebook, the monetisation scheme that Hugo Lennon, Monica Smit, March for Australia and The Noticer appear to be profiting from is "an invitation-only programme that lets you earn money from the performance of your eligible public reels, photos, stories and text posts." What To Fix executive director Victoire Rio said it meant that, in effect, Facebook was in a business relationship with these people and organisations. "If we consider that Meta is in a direct commercial relationship with its publishers, insofar that they're paying them royalties and that they have a monetisation agreement with them, then you could argue that they are liable for the content that gets produced by their business partner in some ways." Ms Rio said she was no longer surprised by some of the pages Meta was choosing to monetise. "We've actually encountered accounts affiliated with sanctioned entities that were part of those programs," she said. "It's quite common that we see accounts that are very clearly in violation of their policies getting through. "I think the question here really is: is the quality of the enforcement of those policies that they have." Policy Violation The pages examined by ABC NEWS Verify all appeared at times to be in direct violation of Facebook's own policies around content monetisation. They state that "debated social issues" such as race "may face reduced or restricted monetisation", while "misleading medical information" is "ineligible to monetise". Independent right-wing extremism researcher Kaz Ross said paying controversial creators was a deliberate strategy from Meta. "Their financial model is to reward content creators who get engagement, and as we know, the best way of getting engagement is to produce rage bait, extremist material, aggravating material: anything that will get people upset and arguing is the best way to get engagement," Dr Ross said. Meta did not answer specific questions about these pages and their content but provided a general statement. "We have clear policies in place which anyone using our monetisation tools must comply with. "When Content Monetisation Pages violate our Community Standards, we apply penalties such as temporarily or permanently disabling their ability to earn on our platforms. "Creators or publishers who repeatedly breach these policies will be removed from our platforms." The company also said it was, "important to distinguish between speech that is offensive and content that could potentially lead to offline violence". "Such speech may be offensive to many, but it is not Meta's role to police offensiveness," it said. 'Any amount is too much' It is unclear exactly how much money these specific creators have made from their Facebook pages as this information is not made public by Meta. Dr Ross said any amount was too much. "It's morally bankrupt to do that, to know that these people are producing content that's in breach of your own regulations, yet you're actually not just allowing them, but you're encouraging them by paying them," she said. Meta is also one of the few social media giants that discloses any information about who it is paying. Other platforms, like YouTube, TikTok and Twitter, have very little transparency in this space. "I think in general, Meta has been more forthcoming with transparency and that's something that should be lauded," What To Fix's Victoire Rio said. "It's still a very low bar, and the question here is to really push for all platforms to at least meet that bar and if not actually go higher,' she said.