Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and Threads, has reportedly paid at least 29 accounts with histories of promoting anti-LGBTQ rhetoric for posts ahead of this year’s midterm elections.
According to reporting from Uncloseted Media and The 19th, Meta pays these creators through Facebook Content Monetization, a program launched in 2024 that allows eligible creators to earn money based on the performance of their public Facebook posts, including text, Stories, Reels, longer videos, and photos.
Many creators celebrated the program’s launch, with some reporting a major increase in their earnings. But critics say the program encourages inflammatory posts and so-called “rage bait” to increase engagement.
Recently, the program has come under scrutiny, with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation revealing in August that Meta invited accounts that promote white supremacist and neo-Nazi ideologies to take part.
Using data compiled by What To Fix (WTF), a Dutch nonprofit focused on tech accountability, Uncloseted Media identified 29 accounts with histories of promoting anti-LGBTQ rhetoric that have been invited to the program. The nonprofit’s Meta Monetization Archive is a searchable database of information collected from Meta’s disclosures.
Among the accounts in the monetization program is Libs of TikTok, run by far-right influencer Chaya Raichik, who documents what she sees as the excesses of so-called “wokeness” and attacks LGBTQ visibility. Her targets have included Listerine for its Pride-themed packaging and drag queen RuPaul for an acceptance speech after RuPaul’s Drag Race won an Emmy Award. Critics say several of Raichik’s posts have led to violent threats against hospitals, schools, and businesses she highlights as promoting or condoning LGBTQ identity.
Other accounts in the program include Benny Johnson, a right-wing commentator who frequently attacks the LGBTQ community; StoneToss, an alleged neo-Nazi webcomic that recently posted a strip using The Rocky Horror Picture Show actor Tim Curry’s death to mock the transgender suicide rate; Candace Owens, a right-wing commentator who has promoted the baseless claim that French President Emmanuel Macron’s wife, Brigitte, was assigned male at birth; and Turning Point USA, the right-wing activist organization founded by the late Charlie Kirk.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has identified several participants in Meta’s program as “extremists,” including far-right podcaster Tucker Carlson, James Lindsay, Jack Posobiec, and Alex Jones, whose conspiracy show InfoWars received an invitation before being acquired by The Onion.
Courtney Radsch, director of the Center for Media and Digital Governance at Open Markets Institute, told Uncloseted Media and The 19th that promoting anti-LGBTQ misinformation is especially dangerous during an election season in which the Trump administration has openly discussed interfering in elections.
Critics also question Meta’s enforcement of its own standards. Jason Hong, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon University, told the outlets that while inflammatory and misleading content may violate Meta’s policies, both the company and creators in the monetization program have financial incentives to promote it.
Uncloseted Media found numerous posts from these creators that appear to violate Facebook’s content monetization policies, which state that content “may be subject to reduced or disabled monetization if it depicts or discusses [debated social issues] in a polarizing or inflammatory manner.”
Meta’s policy also states that misinformation, defined as “content that has been rated false by a third-party fact checker,” is “ineligible to monetize.” But the company ended its U.S. third-party fact-checking program last year, leaving no clear mechanism to enforce that prohibition in the United States.
Meta states that “repeated violations” of its content monetization policies could result in a temporary or permanent monetization ban. However, as of the Monetization Archive’s September 15 update, all of the accounts flagged by Uncloseted Media remained enrolled in the program.
Reports from WTF suggest that Meta doesn’t consistently enforce the program’s other rules, either. Meta’s policies prohibit political and government entities from monetizing their posts, but WTF found hundreds of political parties and current elected and appointed government officials worldwide enrolled in the program. Uncloseted Media also confirmed that at least eight official Republican Party pages were enrolled.
In recent years, Meta has courted the Trump administration and its political and ideological allies. In August 2025, the company hired Robby Starbuck — an opponent of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives who pressures corporations to abandon those programs and their support for LGBTQ causes — as an adviser to help prevent so-called “political bias” in Meta’s AI systems. In April, Meta sponsored a party honoring Isabel Brown, a Daily Wire host who has urged people to leave their LGBTQ “lifestyles.”
Brown and Starbuck are also enrolled in Meta’s content monetization program.
Radsch told Uncloseted Media and The 19th that controlling who gets monetized gives Meta significant power over which political narratives reach users ahead of elections.
“That can be problematic because it means that they can pick winners and losers, they can pick ideologies, they can discriminate at will, and we have very little way to know whether that’s happening,” Radsch warned.
Kelley Robinson, the president of the Human Rights Campaign, criticized Democrats who embrace anti-transgender messaging to counter Republican attack ads.
"My honest answer is you're doing too much and getting too little," Robinson said during an October 5 breakfast roundtable with reporters at HRC's headquarters in Washington, D.C., according to The Advocate. "You don't have to sacrifice any member of our community to win in these races, to have a message that resonates with voters.
Robinson noted that HRC has committed $15 million -- its largest investment in a midterm election -- to elect candidates who support LGBTQ rights and will defend the transgender community from conservative attacks.
Policies related to gender identity rank lowest among the issues American voters consider important to their vote in next month's midterm elections, according to a CNN poll.
Conducted by independent research company SSRS, the poll surveyed 1,206 U.S. adults online and by telephone September 16-17, including 867 registered voters. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3.5 percentage points for all adults and 4.1 points for registered voters.
The poll asked respondents to assess President Donald Trump's job performance and his handling of specific issues. Registered voters were also asked which party's congressional candidates they favored and which issues would influence their vote.
President Donald Trump used an anti-transgender slur in an October 5 social media post attacking Annie Andrews, South Carolina's Democratic nominee for the U.S. Senate seat previously held by the late Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham.
In the Truth Social post, Trump paired Andrews' first name with a rhyming anti-transgender slur.
"Annie 'Trannie' Andrews is running against our wonderful Darline Graham for the Senate in South Carolina," Trump wrote in an endorsement of Graham. "Darline is a High Quality person, maybe the Highest, and Annie Trannie is not, in particular, as it pertains to representing the Values of the Great People of South Carolina -- She is in favor of Transgender for Everyone, Open Borders, Defunding the Police, High Taxes, a Weak Military, and will absolutely fight to take your guns away -- In other words, she is against our Great Second Amendment!"
You must be logged in to post a comment.