People in Indonesia are getting paid by Facebook to post about Pauline Hanson
A woman in Indonesia who goes by the name 'Adira' is earning money through Meta's creator payment program by posting political content in Facebook groups that back Senator Pauline Hanson, according to a Guardian investigation published on 9 August 2026 (The Guardian). Adira posts in a Facebook group called 'Team Pauline Hanson' which has almost 26,000 members.
The Guardian first reported in June 2026 that some of the biggest One Nation supporter groups on Facebook appeared to be run by people overseas who earn money from their posts, with many based in Indonesia. That earlier investigation, published on 28 June 2026, found that much of the content in these groups was designed to get people riled up — posts asking simple yes-or-no questions that drive lots of comments and reactions (The Guardian, 28 June 2026). One creator's Indonesian-language content showed Meta paying US$20 for two posts that reached 50,000 people.
Adira says she is not paid by any agency or political party. She gets her money directly from Meta, which pays creators based on how much attention their posts get. She says nobody tells her what to post about and she has no political lean either way.
So how does it work? Adira is part of Facebook and WhatsApp chat groups with other Indonesians where they share tips about which Facebook groups to post in. Some of these chat groups have 'leaders' who hand out videos and images and suggest which groups are worth targeting. Creators also find new groups to post in through Facebook's own recommendations, which pop up after they post something.
Facebook's Content Monetization program is invite-only and lets creators earn money from their posts (Facebook Business Help Centre). Creators who earn money on Facebook must follow the platform's Partner Monetization Policies and its payment rules (Facebook Business Help Centre).
Rest of World reported in February 2026 that Meta's creator payment program had grown to 12 million accounts, with Indonesia the largest non-English market, and that creators were paid $2 billion in 2024 (Rest of World). Meta announced in March 2026 that it would reward creators who post original content with more reach and more money, while pushing down non-original content (Meta, March 2026). Separately, Meta's Creator Fast Track program pays $1,000 a month to creators with at least 100,000 followers on Instagram, TikTok or YouTube (CNBC).
There is also a bigger picture in the region. In December 2025, The Guardian described a multibillion-dollar illicit industry in South East Asia that had reached into government institutions, in an article titled 'Age of the scam state' (The Guardian, December 2025).
The broader context here is what happens when a social media platform's payment system clashes with its responsibility to manage political content. Adira's account is not a case of covert foreign interference by a government. She describes a hustle: no agency, no political direction, just someone chasing payments in whatever Facebook groups the algorithm recommends. That distinction matters for how we understand the problem, but it does not make the outcome harmless.
When Facebook's own recommendation system pushes creators into partisan political groups, and the payment structure rewards whatever gets the most attention, the result is a financial incentive to pump out outrage-driven political content aimed at Australians from overseas. The 'Team Pauline Hanson' group with almost 26,000 members is not a genuine community built by real supporters. It is, at least in part, a place where engagement is manufactured for profit. One Nation did not set this up, and the people posting in it have no connection to the party. That is almost beside the point for anyone scrolling past this content in their feed.
Meta's March 2026 announcement that it would reward original content and push down non-original material is a policy change, but it does not fix the structural issue. Content can be original, genuinely made by the person posting it, and still be foreign-produced outrage content designed to profit from Australian political divisions. Meta's policy targets copied or recycled content, not where the content comes from or what it is trying to achieve politically.
For anyone working in Australian politics, this is worth thinking about. The content reaching voters in tight electorates or One Nation's heartland is not necessarily made by anyone who cares about the result. It is made by someone who cares about the engagement numbers. Adira says she has no political direction, left or right. She is just following what the algorithm serves up and what the WhatsApp group leaders recommend. That the platform connects those two things is the real story.
The Guardian's 9 August 2026 profile, titled 'Inside a meme factory: meet one of thousands of Indonesians trading political outrage clicks for Facebook cash', describes Adira as one of thousands. If that number is right, this is not a small issue. It is a parallel content economy running underneath Australian politics, invisible to most voters, not controlled by any party, and driven entirely by Meta's own payment system.
The question for the Electoral Commission, for parliament's social media inquiry, and for anyone running a digital campaign in the next federal election is whether the current rules treat this as a problem at all. Foreign donations to Australian political parties are banned. But foreign-produced content boosting Australian politicians, routed through a US tech platform's payment program and made by creators chasing per-view payments, is not covered by those rules. That is a gap, and the platforms have no obvious commercial reason to close it.
