--- title: "Meta Caught Paying Nazis to Post on Facebook" description: "An investigation found that Meta has been paying prominent neo-Nazi accounts to post on Facebook through its invite-only monetization program." date: "2026-08-08" modified: "2026-08-08" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/meta-caught-paying-nazis-to-post-on-facebook" categories: - "Artificial Intelligence" - "Meta" --- # Meta Caught Paying Nazis to Post on Facebook ![A color-treated photo of the offices of Meta]() *Shutterstock / Futurism* Meta was paying out-and-out neo-Nazis to post on Facebook, an [investigation]() from Australia's *ABC News* found. These pages and individual creators posted content that appeared to be in clear violation of Facebook's own hate speech policies. Nonetheless, they were able to earn money on their posts through the platform's "Content Monetization" program — which is invitation-only. One receiving payouts from Meta was Hugo Lennon, a known far-right agitator and white nationalist with ties to neo-Nazi groups. Lennon was taken away by police for hurling racial abuse at India's prime minister Narendra Modi during his stay at a Melbourne hotel, and is [believed to be one of the organizers]() behind an "anti-immigration" march on a sacred Indigenous site in the city last year. Lennon, in other words, was a known quantity, and Meta should've been under no illusions about who they were paying to drive engagement on the platform. Still, the investigation found that he's been receiving payments from Facebook since September 2025. Meanwhile, the Facebook page for the Australian white supremacist site *The Noticer* has been making money through the revenue program since November 2025. Underscoring how much Meta has dropped the ball on this one, even X — owned by Elon Musk, who performed two suspiciously Sieg Heil-looking salutes back in 2025 — has banned *The Noticer* for violating its "hateful profile policy." Facebook's monetization program can be quite lucrative, though it's unclear how much each of these pages made individually. In 2025, Facebook doled out nearly $3 billion to 16 million accounts, the reporting notes. The platform periodically discloses data on these monetized accounts, which has been collated into a [searchable database]() by the tech accountability non-profit What to Fix. What To Fix executive director Victoire Rio didn't mince words when it came to Meta's culpability. "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*, "then you could argue that they are liable for the content that gets produced by their business partner in some ways." Hate, unfortunately, sells. Right-wing extremism researcher Kaz Ross told *ABC* that 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." It's another example of how quickly Meta dropped its once-stricter content moderation policies when Donald Trump returned to the White House. Shortly before his second inauguration, Meta [loosened its standards around hate speech](), particularly on topics like gender identity and immigration, two of the far right's favorite issues. Facebook is far from the only platform that's gotten alarmingly chummy with extremists. Earlier this year, X awarded the $1 million first place prize of its article writing contest [to a proudly self-proclaimed Nazi](). In a statement, Meta didn't address specific questions about the pages it was awarding money to, but said it was "important to distinguish between speech that is offensive and content that could potentially lead to offline violence". "Such speech may be offensive to many, but it is not Meta's role to police offensiveness," the company added. **More on Meta:** [*FTC Concerned About Meta Surveillance of Users of Erectile Dysfunction Apps*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()