Guardian Australia has found that several of the largest pro-One Nation Facebook groups appear to be run from overseas by foreign digital creators who monetize content. The analysis examined 14 of the largest public groups with at least 8,000 members, most created this year.
Engagement farms in Southeast Asia
Digital media researcher Timothy Graham, an associate professor at Queensland University of Technology, said the majority of groups are full of content fed by what appears to be “a foreign-run, predominantly Indonesian, for-hire engagement farm operation.” Many administrators and top posters are tagged as “digital creators” offering subscriptions, potentially earning money through Facebook monetization programs.
“The people who comment, by contrast, are overwhelmingly genuine, established Australian accounts,” Graham said. “The operation therefore harvests a real Australian audience for engagement and money.”
One group with over 117,000 members is run by administrators whose profiles indicate they speak Indonesian and are based in Southeast Asia. Some administrators post images from Meta’s back-end showing their content’s popularity in Australia, while others share screenshots of Facebook earnings. One creator shared a screenshot in Indonesian showing Meta would pay US$20 for two posts reaching 50,000 people.
Outrage bait and AI-generated content
Much of the content is designed as outrage or “poll bait” – asking yes/no questions like “Was Pauline Hanson right to scold this journo?” or “Should Sharia law be banned in Australia?” Other posts are reactive, with some accounts posting multiple times about the party’s “Fire the Liar” campaign. In one case, text and images from a verified One Nation page were copied.
Many posts are replicated across groups, often by the same accounts. As ABC Verify found, much of it is AI-generated, with a significant theme of Islamophobia. An AI-generated image of a woman in a niqab holding a sign asking “Do you really want to deport us?” appears across multiple groups.
Other foreign-run groups
Two accounts running a pro-Hanson group with nearly 40,000 followers appear based in India. Before posting Australia-centric content, they shared Hindi content on Indian political topics and occasional selfies, offering contact details for “brand promotion.” Common themes include Anthony Albanese, Barnaby Joyce, Fatima Payman, Gina Rinehart, and Ben Roberts-Smith.
Crystal Abidin, a professor of internet studies at Curtin University, said: “For a lot of the south-east Asian meme factories, the politics are entirely divorced from the profit making. They are for hire.” She noted these accounts may use political posts to demonstrate reach for brand contracts or profit via monetization schemes. “Getting clicks for hate views, for outrage, for trolling … For people who are there, not because they like your content, but because they can’t look away.”
Impersonation and Meta response
An administrator for “One Nation Supporters Australia??” with over 135,000 members purports to be federal MP David Farley, who won the Farrer byelection in May. The account, created on 30 May, uses photos from Farley’s campaign page but promotes a cryptocurrency scheme and AI-generated content supporting Hanson. The “Farley” account moderates at least eight pro-One Nation groups.
One Nation media adviser Richard Henderson said party members had been impersonated on Facebook for “years and years” before declining further comment. The “Farley” account was removed after Guardian Australia approached Meta. A Meta spokesperson said: “We are reviewing the content that was shared [by Guardian Australia] and will remove anything that violates our policies.”
