The lucrative business of reactionary AI

The lucrative business of reactionary AI-generated posts on Facebook

InvestigationPages based in Sri Lanka, Vietnam or Venezuela are targeting French audiences with political content generated by artificial intelligence and often supportive of the far right – with profit as the goal.

"Should all foreign criminals be deported without exception?"; "Should retirees receive more assistance than new arrivals?"; "Prisoners are complaining about unbearable heat without air conditioning in prison. What would you like to say to them?" For several months now, questions like these seem to have flooded Facebook in France.

Posted in rapid succession by pages with names generally evoking France and accompanied by visuals generated by artificial intelligence, these "polls" invite users to "vote" by leaving a like or a heart on the post. They have been attracting large audiences, sometimes garnering more than 2,000 likes and hundreds of comments and shares.

The pages that publish these posts sometimes openly support the far-right Rassemblement National party, but what truly defines their positioning is their reactionary stances on nearly every topic, with strong anti-immigration and anti-Islam leanings, and criticism of the European Union and Ukraine. Somewhat more surprisingly, they also feature a passionate defense of retirees' purchasing power, as retirees appear to be the primary target audience. Occasionally, the pages also post messages presenting Jean-Luc Mélenchon, the leader of the radical left-wing La France Insoumise, in a positive light, sandwiched between messages rooted firmly on the right, clearly in an effort to provoke negative reactions.

And yet, these numerous pages – there are at least 2,000 of them, according to Le Monde's estimates – are not usually run by activists from the RN or any other French political group. In reality, they are administered from the other side of the world, by people who often do not speak a word of French but have found a way to make money by publishing large amounts of divisive political content aimed at France.

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