Foreign-Run Engagement Farms
A Guardian Australia investigation has identified that large public Facebook groups supporting One Nation are being controlled or heavily supplied by digital creators based outside the country. The probe examined 14 such groups, each with at least 8,000 members, and found many appeared to be run predominantly from Indonesia and India.
Some of these groups reportedly attracted more than 100,000 members. While presented as communities for Australians concerned with immigration, religion, national identity and politics, researchers described the activity as resembling foreign-run engagement farms or meme factories.
Many administrators and frequent contributors were reportedly based outside Australia, often identifying themselves as digital creators using Facebook features to monetise popular content.
The investigation noted that controversial poll-style posts, AI-generated imagery and material copied from Australian political pages were among the methods allegedly used to attract engagement.
Distinguishing Nationality from Manipulation
The reported locations of these operators matter because the investigation found many accounts appeared to be operated from India and Indonesia. However, this must not be twisted into hostility toward Indian or Indonesian people.
The accusations concern particular account operators, digital businesses and engagement networks—not entire nationalities or law-abiding people from those backgrounds. Indian Australians and Indonesian Australians are part of the communities being affected by this manipulation.
They should not be blamed for the conduct of overseas individuals allegedly attempting to profit from Australian political tensions. The problem is foreign manipulation, not ethnicity.
The Business Model of Outrage
Social media platforms reward attention.
Every angry comment pushes content into more feeds, every argument increases visibility, and every share helps grow the page. This creates a financial incentive to publish material that makes Australians fearful, suspicious or furious.
The operators do not necessarily need Australians to believe every claim. They only need users to react. Whether someone comments in support or outrage, the page still benefits from the engagement.
The Investigation
found that Islamophobic themes reportedly appeared repeatedly across some groups. Repeated exposure to this material can make fringe opinions appear more widespread than they really are.
Real Australians Spreading Manufactured Content
One of the most concerning elements is that much of the engagement reportedly came from genuine Australian Facebook users.
This allows manufactured content to blend into authentic political debate. This manipulation depends on real emotions. It exploits existing frustrations and turns them into a profitable cycle of outrage.
A post suggesting that Australia is being taken over can trigger fear. A misleading crime story can create anger toward an entire community. A fabricated quote attributed to a politician can deepen distrust between voters.
This pressure can force genuine political organisations to adopt increasingly extreme language because online pages appear to demonstrate strong public demand for it.
One Nation Denies Involvement
The foreign-run pages should not automatically be treated as official One Nation operations. One Nation has reportedly said it is aware of overseas content but is not linked to those responsible and cannot control what foreign individuals publish online.
That distinction is important. The investigation focused on groups supporting the party or using its political themes, not necessarily pages directly operated or authorised by the party itself.
However, unofficial pages can still shape how Australians understand a political movement.
Some overseas pages investigated separately have reportedly used fake stories and AI-generated political images to target Australians, particularly on divisive issues involving Pauline Hanson, immigration and Islam.
AI and Platform Transparency
Artificial intelligence has made it faster and cheaper to create fake political images, fabricated news reports and convincing social media personalities. An operator no longer needs a large newsroom or professional design team.
A small group can generate hundreds of posts, imitate Australian language and manufacture apparently local accounts. This makes it increasingly difficult for ordinary users to identify whether a post comes from an Australian journalist, a genuine supporter, a political campaign or a foreign engagement farmer.
Meta has said it reviews and removes material that violates its policies, but the existence of large foreign-run groups raises questions about whether the platform is acting quickly enough. Platforms can often see information that users cannot, including administrator locations, coordinated posting behaviour and links between suspicious accounts.
Australians deserve greater transparency when large political groups are controlled from overseas.
Financial transparency is also needed. Users should know when inflammatory political material is being published by an operator earning money from their reactions.
The Need for Caution
Government regulation alone cannot solve the problem. Before reacting to an inflammatory post, users should check who operates the page, whether the story has been reported by credible news organisations and whether the image shows signs of AI generation or manipulation.
The findings raise a confronting question regarding the nature of online anger in Australia.
This reality challenges the assumption that viral political content represents the consensus of the Australian electorate. Instead, it points to a complex ecosystem where overseas entities leverage local grievances for profit, requiring citizens to scrutinise the origins of the information they consume.