Meta Pays Australian Extremists and Anti-Vaxxers Through Content Monetization

An ABC News Verify investigation found that Meta is directly paying several controversial Australian creators through its invitation-only Content Monetization program, including a white nationalist with neo-Nazi ties and the founder of a prominent anti-vaccine group. Among those earning revenue are Hugo Lennon, who was moved on by police for hurling racist abuse at India’s prime minister and whose videos push replacement theory; The Noticer, a far-right site suspended from X for hateful content; a page tied to the anti-immigration March for Australia group; and Reignite Democracy Australia founder Monica Smit, whose page spreads vaccine misinformation. Much of this content appears to violate Meta’s own monetization rules, which restrict payouts on debated racial issues and bar misleading medical claims entirely.

The significance goes beyond enforcement failure. Researchers argue the arrangement makes Meta a commercial partner to these creators — paying royalties under a monetization agreement — which raises questions about the company’s liability for content it profits from. Meta distributed roughly $3 billion to about 16.2 million accounts in 2025, and its policy disclosures let What To Fix build the searchable archive that surfaced these cases. Critics note the incentive structure is the point: engagement drives payouts, and rage-bait drives engagement, so the platform effectively rewards inflammatory material.

Meta declined to comment on specific pages, saying it enforces clear policies and removes repeat violators, while drawing a distinction between offensive speech and content that could lead to offline violence — “it is not Meta’s role to police offensiveness.” Notably, Meta is one of the few platforms disclosing any payment data at all; YouTube, TikTok, and X offer far less, underscoring both a low industry baseline for transparency and how weak enforcement remains even where visibility exists.