Inside the Meme Factory: How Indonesians Are Cashing In on Outraged Reactions on Facebook

Exclusive: Adira says she doesn't know much about the countries she targets — or even their leaders. She's just looking for payouts from Meta, which rewards engagement.

By Ariel Bogle and Aqwam F Hanifan
Sunday, August 9, 2026

From her home in West Java, Adira starts most mornings with a Facebook post about coffee and her busy day ahead. Then she gets to work.

In a Facebook group called Team Pauline Hanson, she shares a photo of the Australian senator and One Nation leader and asks her roughly 26,000 members what they think about Hanson's comments on Islam and the Australian way of life.

In a Charlie Kirk fan group, she shares an AI-generated image of a young girl wearing a hijab — similar to the one she wears in her profile picture — holding a sign asking if bacon can be served at school with Muslim students present.

She posts in groups with titles like "I Love USA!", "JD VANCE 2028," and "Pete Hegseth Fans," as well as others focused on creating images of handsome AI-generated pilots.

She Doesn't Know Who the President Is

In June, The Guardian revealed that some of the biggest pro-One Nation Facebook groups appeared to be run by and largely composed of foreign creators monetizing their content — many based in Indonesia.

To better understand these meme factories, The Guardian spoke with Adira, whose account is among the most prolific in one of the largest groups.

Adira says she's not paid by an agency. Instead, she's trying to earn revenue from Meta, which rewards engagement with content through its creator program. She also says she receives no direction on which campaigns to promote.

"We don't follow foreign politics, we don't want to get involved with that stuff," she says. "We're just trying to earn more money. We have no political intention, right or left."

From her description of the ecosystem, Adira is part of Facebook and WhatsApp groups with other Indonesians where advice is shared about which groups to post in.

Sometimes She Slips Up

Some of these groups have "leaders" who provide videos and images and give advice about which groups might be worthwhile to post in. The creators also find groups through platform recommendations. "If I post something, suggested groups will show up," she says. "I saw the Pauline group and the dollars were good, then you look for other groups with Pauline."

Sometimes she slips up. In Team Pauline Hanson in July she shared a post about a Muslim woman leaving the US because of "Trump's hate for Muslims" rather than content tailored for an Australian audience.

The group, founded in April, describes itself as a space for those "who admire the leadership and vision of Pauline Hanson." The presence of so many Indonesian women sometimes causes problems, Adira says: "People from overseas get suspicious."

She is part of Indonesia's infamous "buzzer" economy — accounts that amplify certain messages on social media, usually while hiding their financial incentives.

The System Attracts the Most Vulnerable

This cyber army is made up of creators trying to make money from clicks, as well as posters linked to advertising companies or political parties. They can also be state-sponsored, according to Associate Professor Ross Tapsell, who has researched the industry for the Australian National University.

"It comes out of the idea that they're making noise online," he said of the term "buzzer." "In the way that lots of small insects put together make a really big ambient noise."

While some buzzers are high-profile influencers and celebrities, they can also be people who are not earning much at all.

"This system works by attracting the most economically vulnerable people," wrote Angtyasti Jiwasiddi in the Indonesian newspaper Kompas. "This work requires no skills or capital — only a mobile phone and a few accounts."

Meta's $3 Billion Creator Payout Problem

This phenomenon is partly the result of Meta's business model, according to Timothy Graham, associate professor and media researcher at Queensland University of Technology, who points to the financial incentives that pay for engagement with content to keep attention on the platform.

In 2025, the company says it paid nearly $3 billion to content creators for videos, photos, and text posts.

Meta didn't respond to questions for this article but said seven of the fourteen pro-Hanson groups previously identified by The Guardian had been suspended for "violating our policies."

"If you want to fix the problem, you need to end factory farming of meta-humans for profit," Graham says. "There is something harmful about this product."

Adira appears to be running just one of many Indonesian accounts posting about Hanson and politics in a country she says she barely knows. "We're just looking for funds," she says. "We don't even know who the president is... The Pauline group has good money."

*Name has been changed.

Know more? Write to ariel.bogle@theguardian.com