Facebook pays white nationalist and anti-vaxxers for rage-bait content
Facebook is paying controversial creators to produce rage-bait content
An ABC News Verify investigation found that Meta's Facebook is paying controversial Australian creators, including a white nationalist with neo-Nazi ties and an anti-vaccine activist, through its content monetization program. These creators have produced content that appears to violate Facebook's own policies, yet they continue to earn revenue. Experts criticize Meta for rewarding engagement over safety, while Meta defends its role, saying it is not responsible for policing offensiveness.
It's morally bankrupt to do that, to know that these people are producing content that's in breach of your own regulations, yet you're actually not just allowing them, but you're encouraging them by paying them.
- mattlondon
I think this is a bit misleading.
It sounds to me like the creators are creating and uploading the content, and then that is getting monetised on the platform?
The title makes it sound like meta is commissioning the content? I don't think that is the case here? Or is it?
Directly commissioning someone to create it is pretty wild.
- rubyfan
Why anyone still engages with these platforms is totally beyond me. They are bad for your soul, bad for the nation, bad for the world.
- florkbork
I will call out the ABC here for taking a lot of the boots on the ground work that Tom Tanuki - independent journo (https://youtube.com/@tomtanuki) has done with these far right slopaganda mills, slicing off the prior recognition and pretending it's a big new problem they just found.
While a bit of this is new... Is it that new? Is this report that detailed? Hmmmmm
- fosron
Facebook is still big in my country, Lithuania, and both rage-bait and other type of fringe content is rampant, and even worse after fact-checking was removed. It is wild, and with some outside actors (specific country that shall not be named) it is a big problem with political and social effects being felt IRL.
- bilekas
This isn't anything new, it was abundantly clear after Facebook removed their fact checking team during covid that the priority was engagement over everything else, and rage bait is exactly that.
- wpietri
> "it is not Meta's role to police offensiveness"
Just to fund, transmit, amplify, protect, and profit from it.
- Barbing
Recent Guardian article:
“Inside a meme factory: meet one of thousands of Indonesians trading political outrage clicks for Facebook cash“
- superxpro12
Facebook figured out a long time ago that "ragebait" and profit are transitively connected via "engagement". They recognized that anger, hate, fear, and all negative emotions can ALSO bring in a LOT of clicks.
- khernandezrt
Just to add onto this; Instagram purposely floats controversial comments to the top of a comment section for "engagement" purposes. I've seen this many times.
- bwb
FB is built on rage bait, what else do they have beside cute videos?