Foreign-run Facebook pages – with an odd link to a British soap opera – are masquerading as Australian news publications to spread false information about politicians and drive engagement.

Incendiary exchanges destined to ignite national discourse, wild showdowns between livid MPs. Fake scandals, alleged cover-ups, dodgy rorts claims, rumoured fractures within government.

It sounds like a typical session of federal parliament, right?

But in the fictional realm of online disinformation, only the names have been added to discredit the innocent.

An investigation reveals that a select series of Facebook pages have taken to posing as reputable news organisations to politically mislead hundreds of thousands of Australian social media users.

Pages called The Australian, Australia Times and The Australian Bulletin are publishing content generated using artificial intelligence multiple times daily about the likes of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong and Western Australian senator Fatima Payman.

Most of the made-up material focuses on the workings of federal parliament, although some is devoted to bogus confrontations between political commentators and MPs during television interviews.

Curiously, the pages are run offshore by users in Vietnam and are designed to direct readers to an external website strewn with adverts.

Experts say the content appears to be part of a co-ordinated operation pushing large volumes of AI-generated political disinformation to drive engagement and monetise web traffic.

One of the pages, The Australian, appears to trade on the credibility of the Murdoch-owned national daily broadsheet of the same name.

The pages are run offshore by users in Vietnam. Photo: AAP

Facebook’s page transparency details reveal it is operated by 12 people from Vietnam. In a former life it was, bizarrely, a fan page for long-running British TV soap Emmerdale about the comings and goings in a fictional village in the Yorkshire Dales.

The other two pages have also been through multiple name changes, with many also oddly related to the TV series, which first aired in 1972 and at its height, attracted more than 11 million viewers per episode.

The pages are oddly related to fanpages for long-running UK soap, Emmerdale. Photo: ITV

The Australian Bulletin is managed by users in Vietnam and Indonesia, while details for the Australia Times page are unclear.

The Australian page also claims to be authorised by the Australian Christian Lobby, appearing to mimic political authorisation statements typically used on political advertisements to convey authenticity.

However, the lobby confirmed it has no knowledge of the site.

Since the beginning of March, The Australian page has posted on average 11 times daily and almost exclusively with the aim of presenting Australian political disinformation. 

“BREAKING: Parliament falls silent as Pauline Hanson unexpectedly collapses during live parliamentary session,” one post reads alongside an AI-generated image of the Queensland senator.

Several other posts by the fictitious pages also feature disinformation about Hanson’s health.

Hanson is a repeated target of the disinformation pages. Photo: Facebook/AAP

This prompted her to actually post on social media that multiple concerned people had contacted her office, checking on her wellbeing after viewing the content.

Other posts feature concocted clashes between politicians, made-up quotes and the use of AI-generated images.

The Australian Bulletin and Australia Times simultaneously post identical content to The Australian.

Collectively, the three sites boast more than 36,000 followers.

While engagement varies significantly between individual posts, some have been shared hundreds of times and seen by thousands more. 

With each one published, all three pages direct users to an external website via a link in the comments section.

The site, called soapspoiler.net, appears to reference the pages’ previous incarnation as Emmerdale fan pages.

Other links connect the accounts. Each of the three Facebook pages lists an email address ending in @fbtarget.com.

FbTarget is a Hanoi-based social media fan page management system allowing users to operate multiple pages at once, including scheduling posts, managing inboxes and hiding comments.

FbTarget is also listed on the “contact us” page of the soapspoiler.net website, alongside another Vietnamese company, Bee Up.

Bee Up also manages fan pages and says it provides “knowledge and solutions” for individuals passionate about making money online, based on “accumulated secrets”.

AAP FactCheck put questions to both FbTarget and Bee Up without receiving a response. 

Macquarie University cyber security hub executive director Dali Kaafar said the various links suggested a co-ordinated effort consistent with an “industrialised content” model.

“In many cases, the primary motivation behind these networks is commercial,” Kaafar said. 

“Operators produce large volumes of low-cost content designed to resemble legitimate news and distribute it through social platforms to generate clicks and advertising revenue.”

Political content was particularly effective for this purpose as it drove engagement and sharing, he said.

Even if the primary motivation was financial, Kaafar said the impact of the political disinformation was real.

“Once a network of pages and websites has been built and accumulated an audience, it can function as a distribution channel that amplifies misleading or polarising narratives,” he said. 

“In other words, profit-driven content farms can unintentionally contribute to the spread of political misinformation, especially during periods of heightened political attention.”

Cybercrime investigator at Sydney-based IFW Global, Ken Gamble, agreed that the pages likely represented an engagement-driven advertising model aimed at maximising profit. However, he pointed out that discovering those ultimately behind the disinformation was much harder.

“The appearance of a marketing platform or domain linked to the pages does not necessarily mean that company is behind the activity, as these tools can be used by third parties anywhere in the world,” Gamble said.

“Without deeper technical investigation, it would be premature to rule out other actors or sinister motivations.”

-AAP