By: The Guardian
Dec 05, 2018
A mysterious group has used some of Facebook’s largest far-right pages to create a commercial enterprise that harvests anti-Islamic hate for profit and influences politics across the globe, a Guardian investigation has revealed.
For the past two years the Israel-based group has co-opted at least 21 organically grown far-right pages, using them to churn out thousands of coordinated posts to more than 1 million followers across four continents and funnelling audiences to a cluster of 10 advertisement-heavy websites to milk the traffic for profit.
The posts stoke deep hatred of Islam across the western world and influence politics in Australia, Canada, the UK and the US by amplifying far-right parties including Australia’s One Nation and vilifying Muslim politicians such as US Democratic congresswoman Ilhan Omar.