Facebook is paying controversial creators to produce rage-bait content

An ABC NEWS Verify investigation has revealed that Meta, Facebook's parent company, is directly paying several controversial content creators, including a white nationalist with neo-Nazi links and an anti-vaxxer. These creators' content sometimes violates Facebook's own policies on monetization. While Meta states that it has clear policies for monetization tool compliance and does not police offensiveness, the ABC NEWS Verify investigation found that these creators are benefiting from Facebook's Content Monetization program.

A white nationalist who shouted racist abuse at the Indian Prime Minister last month is among those being paid by Meta to produce content. The Noticer, a far-right Australian news website, and a page promoting the anti-immigration group March for Australia have also been making money through Facebook's revenue program. Monica Smit, founder of the anti-vaccine and anti-lockdown group Reignite Democracy Australia, has been earning advertising revenue through Facebook since at least 2017.

The investigation found that these pages often violated Facebook's content monetization policies, including the promotion of white supremacist concepts and vaccine misinformation. Meta has an invitation-only programme for monetization, which pays creators for eligible public posts. What To Fix, a tech policy and accountability non-profit, states that Meta is in a business relationship with these individuals and organisations and could be held liable for the content produced by them.