Meta’s Facebook has been paying revenue-sharing bonuses to accounts run by neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and conspiracy theorists through its Meta automated ads program, whose content appeared to violate the social platform’s own hate-speech policies, according to an Australia ABC News investigation.
The findings shed light over online hate speech on Facebook and how the platform handles it, while paying creators for popular posts. The issue is also how ranking, recommendation, and payment tools turn attention into income.
Facebook Turns Engagement into Money
The investigation drew on disclosure data compiled by the nonprofit, What To Fix, which found that a far-right Australia activist, Hugo Lennon, with documented ties to neo-Nazi groups, has been receiving payments through the Facebook Content Monetization program invite-only, since September 2025.
The investigation has unleashed a wave of questions around whether Meta automated ads had strong enough safety checks.
The Facebook page for white supremacist site “The Noticer” was also reported to have earned money through Meta’s program. It’s worth noting that The Nicer website has been monetized since November 2025 and is currently banned on Elon Musk’s X for violating the platform’s hateful conduct policy.
Meta automated ads have become the playground for any supremacist intelligence network, where extremist communities learn how platforms work to gain reach.
The Facebook Content Monetization automation program paid out nearly $3 billion to an estimate of 16.2 million account worldwide in 2025, according to the investigation. With millions of accounts involved, failures can allow harmful material to earn money before enforcement systems respond.
Meta’s creator economy relies on Facebook content monetization automation that measures qualified views, watch time and engagement that help decide whether eligible creators earn money from public videos, stories, photos, and text posts.
The Facebook content monetization program invite-only system has no public criteria explaining who is accepted. Creators can register interest, but Meta decides who receives access and can remove accounts that break its policies.
ABC News verified that Australian accounts linked to white nationalist, neo-Nazi and anti-vaccine activity had been monetized. The finding put Meta automated ads under scrutiny because payments can encourage more material that performs strongly.
Kaz Ross, right-wing extremism researcher, said Meta ads automated rules sit inside a business model built around engagement.
“Meta’s 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,” Ross told ABC.
The concern circles around Facebook content monetization automation can measure performance without understanding harm. Angry comments can still look valuable to an automated system.
According to research, online hate speech can spread quickly when users react, argue, or share it. Not every offensive post succeeds, but engagement alone can be a poor measure of healthy content.
Facebook Turns Engagement into Money. No Matter Where It Comes From.
The social networking platform uses separate systems for separate jobs. Facebook content moderation automation identifies possible rule-breaking material, while other tools rank posts, recommend them or decide whether creators can earn money.
Researchers studying extremist groups online strategies say controversial creators can learn which topics, wording and formats produce strong reactions. Performance dashboards show what travels furthest, helping users adjust future posts around recommendation systems.
What To Fix Executive Director, Victoire Rio, questioned whether Meta ads automated rules are enough when Meta pays publishers directly.
“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 monetization agreement with them,” Rio told ABC news, adding, “then you could argue that they are liable for the content that gets produced by their business partner in some ways.”
The Facebook-parent did not answer specific questions about the Australian pages, claiming that Meta automated ads should be considered separately from decisions about speech.
“Such speech may be offensive to many, but it is not Meta’s role to police offensiveness,” Meta stated, showing the line it draws between offensive expression and material that may contribute to real-world harm.
Researcher at University of Canberra, Dr Jordan McSwiney, warned that removing individual extremist accounts does not solve the problem.
“This is a drop of water in the ocean at the end of the day,” neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell, said after getting suspended on X.
The question remains whether Meta automated ads and creator payments can operate without rewarding provocative material that safety systems are meant to control. The debate now goes beyond whether automated ads can technically identify harmful content.
The trick is how should the company carry responsibility when systems designed to reward engagement also give financial value to material that may deepen division or promote extremist ideas.
Meta argues that offensive speech should not automatically be treated as dangerous speech. Critics, however, say paying creators change the relationship between a platform and the content it hosts.
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