Pro-One Nation Facebook groups appear to be run by foreign ‘meme factories’ that monetise content | One Nation

Some of the largest One Nation supporter groups on Facebook appear to be run from abroad by foreign digital creators who monetize the content.

Guardian Australia examined 14 of the largest pro-One Nation public groups with at least 8,000 members and found most were formed this year.

While some groups have been around for a long time and appear to have been founded by genuine supporters, the majority are heavily fueled by content that digital media researcher Timothy Graham describes as appearing to be “a foreign-run, predominantly Indonesian, for-hire engagement farm operation.”

Many of the admins and top posters in these public groups are labeled “digital creators” and offer subscriptions; This means they may be making money through Facebook programs that allow monetization of content types.

“In contrast, the vast majority of people commenting are real, well-established Australian accounts,” said Graham, an associate professor of digital media at Queensland University of Technology. “So the operation attracts a real Australian audience for engagement and money.”

One of the largest groups, with more than 117,000 members, is run by at least two administrators whose personal profiles say they speak Indonesian and are based in Southeast Asia. They are labeled as digital creators.

Some of these administrators post images from Meta’s backend on their personal profiles, including graphics in Indonesian that show their content is popular in Australia. Others post clips showing their Facebook earnings based on the number of views of their content and lament the slow months.

A creator who posted about whether the burqa should be banned in Australia shared a screenshot in Indonesian showing that Meta will pay $20 for two posts that reach 50,000 people.

Much of the content in these groups is designed to be what Graham calls outrage or “poll bait”; “Was Pauline Hanson right to berate this magazine?” He asked yes or no questions such as: or “Should sharia law be banned in Australia?”

Other posts are reactionary, with some of the accounts followed by Guardian Australia posting multiple times about the party’s “Kick Out the Liar” campaign. In at least one case, text and imagery promoting the party’s fundraising campaign were copied from a verified One Nation page.

Many posts are copied between groups, sometimes by the same accounts, and As found in ABC VerificationMost of them are created by artificial intelligence. There is an important theme of Islamophobia. For example, “Do you really want to deport us?” The AI-generated image of a woman in a burqa holding a sign asking: appears in multiple groups.

Two accounts running one of the pro-Hanson Facebook groups with nearly 40,000 followers appear to be based in India. Before releasing Australia-centric content in recent months, they also shared Hindi content on India’s political issues, as well as the occasional selfie. They offer contact information for “brand promotion”.

The analysis revealed that other common themes in the content included Anthony Albanese, Barnaby Joyce, Fatima Payman, Gina Rinehart and Ben Roberts-Smith.

Crystal Abidin, professor of internet studies at Curtin University, who researches digital creative economies in Southeast Asia, told Guardian Australia: “For most meme factories in Southeast Asia, the politics are completely separate from making a profit. They’re for hire.”

These accounts may use political posts to demonstrate their reach to attract brand engagements, increase followers and subscribers, or personally profit through monetization schemes offered by Meta, TikTok and other platforms, Meta said. Creator group chats are often used to share images and ideas on how to reach different audiences.

“Meme factories can be one enthusiastic person with dozens of devices, or they can be dozens of people working in coordination,” he said. “He could be someone working out of his bedroom, taking unofficial money under the table, but he could also be a real digital media company.”

Abidin said hostility can be lucrative for digital creative economies: “Getting clicks for hate views, anger, trolling… for people who are there not because they like your content, but because they can’t look away.”

The administrator of a group called “One Nation Supporters Australia🇦🇺”, which has more than 135,000 members, claims to be David Farley, the federal MP who won the Farrer by-election in early May.

The account, created just May 30, uses photos taken from a Facebook page used for Farley’s campaign, but offers a financial plan advising people to withdraw their assets from “collapsing banks” and invest in cryptocurrency instead, as well as share AI-generated content in support of Hanson.

The “Farley” account operates at least eight public Facebook groups related to One Nation; These include two of the largest groups analyzed by Guardian Australia and several with as few as 16 members; one of which targets One Nation supporters in South Australia.

Reached by phone, One Nation media advisor Richard Henderson said party members had been impersonated on Facebook “for years” and subsequently said he would not respond to media inquiries from Guardian Australia.

The “Farley” account was removed after Guardian Australia contacted Meta for comment.

“We are reviewing shared content [by Guardian Australia] and we will remove anything that violates our policies,” a Meta spokesperson said.