How Facebook Monetizes Political Parties

Despite political parties being classified by Meta as “ineligible for monetization”, our research reveals how Facebook has been – and continues to be – providing access to its monetization services to political parties. 

Our findings do not suggest that parties of any particular political persuasion are more or less likely to benefit, nor do they indicate specific wrongdoings by political parties themselves.

Rather, the evidence points to repeated enforcement failures on the part of Meta, fueling potential brand‑safety risks for advertisers and threats to electoral integrity.

Facebook’s partner monetization policies explicitly bar political parties from using monetization services.

Despite this restriction, our Meta Monetization Archive – compiled from Meta’s own partner-publisher lists backed up over six years – reveals dozens of political party pages that went through Meta’s business partner qualification review process and were approved by the company to earn money through its revenue redistribution programs.

A simple search for the keyword “party” in our archive returned over 2,870 results. Although most are unrelated to politics, this quick review surfaced political parties from across the political spectrum and all continents with a history of being enrolled in Facebook’s revenue redistribution programs.

Among the most notable examples surfaced via this quick search were parties from countries as diverse as:

By cross‑referencing known political party pages, as well as running searches in languages other than English, we were able to surface several more cases, further confirming the widespread and global nature of the problem.

Meta appears to be aware of its enforcement shortcomings. In its January-June 2025 DSA transparency report, it reported more than 1,800 instances of pages affiliated with politicians and government actors, which it had approved to monetize within the European Union, despite its explicit partner monetization policies restriction. Notably, this number only reflects the pages that the company self-identified over the report period.

Facebook’s recurring failure to enforce its own policy barring political parties from accessing its monetization services is particularly notable as political parties are not obscure, hard-to-detect entities. Among the entities we identified are major political forces; in some cases, ruling parties.

Meta has access to a variety of on- and off-platform signals which it could use to automatically trigger heightened due diligence reviews for these pages. Most of the pages we identified are clearly labelled as “political party”. They are also blue-tick verified, a process which reportedly involves a formal review process. In many cases, the pages also had to register their status with Meta in order to run electoral and political ads. Should the company require further verification, a review of official party websites could have confirmed authenticity. In some countries, political parties are also required to disclose their social media accounts as part of their registration with electoral authorities.

Despite these signals, the pages we reviewed all successfully passed through Meta’s business partner qualification review process — sometimes multiple times. Many also appear to have been invited by Meta to join its Content Monetization program, a program which the company claims is currently only accessible by invitation.

Among the top results uncovered by our cursory search for the keyword “party” is the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), one of Bangladesh's top political parties, which ruled the country on several occasions since the party's founding in the late 1970s.

The BNP Facebook page boasts 3.9 million followers. It is blue-tick verified, clearly labeled as a “political party”, and clearly referenced on the BNP’s official website.

Our archive reveals that the BNP page has been enrolled for revenue redistribution programs with Facebook on multiple occasions and across various content types since as far back as July 2021.

As of 25 November 2025, the page is listed as actively enrolled in the Content Monetization program, Facebook’s invite-only program, which supports monetization across all content types. The program formally replaced the In-Stream Ads and Ads-on-Reels programs (now retired), which previously enabled the monetization of video and reel content, on September 1, 2025. 

We sought comment from the BNP - but did not hear back as of publication.

Argentina’s ruling party,La Libertad Avanza – which won a landslide victory in the country’s 2025 midterm elections on 26 October 2025 – similarly appears to have been benefiting from Meta’s monetization programs. As with the BNP page, its Facebook page appears to have been transferred from the In-Stream Ads and Ads-on-Reels programs onto Facebook’s invite-only Content Monetization program. The page was eventually delisted on 21 October 2025, after we alerted Meta staff to the policy violation at a workshop in Buenos Aires.

Although the Libertad Avanza Facebook page is no longer actively listed as monetized, our archive reveals a history of monetization that spans several programs and stretches back to December 2023

We attempted to contact La Libertad Avanza, but were unable to reach them.

Meta’s consistent failure to enforce against its own partner monetization policies, despite having access to signals that could be used to detect violating actors at scale, is not unique to political parties. Our previous research identified similar trends across politicians, government agencies, including police and military entities – and even sanctioned entities. Collectively, these findings raise concerns over the overall reliability and thoroughness of Meta’s business partner qualification review processes.  

Meta’s onboarding of political parties as partner-publishers exposes advertisers to brand-safety risks.

Over the last few years, advertisers have expressed growing concerns over their brands being associated with actors and content that go against their brand values. This led Meta and the wider industry to commit to industry standards, revolving around a brand-safety floor and dedicated tools for advertisers to exercise more control over where their ads show.

Meta markets its partner-publisher list as a ‘brand suitability control’ tool, allowing advertisers to display their ads exclusively on Meta’s partner-publisher inventory. The company describes this inventory as comprising only publishers confirmed through via its business partner qualification review processes to comply with its partner monetization policies.

As our research has shown, however, not all accounts on Meta’s partner-publisher list meet these policies – despite the company having access to data that could help it detect and mitigate against such violations.

By consistently failing to use available signals and to accurately review its partner-publishers for compliance, Meta is exposing its advertising clients to reputational risks. Being associated with political parties can lead to brand backlash – a risk that is further exacerbated in times of elections and hyper partisanship.

The risk of seeing one’s ad associated with a political party is not a theoretical risk. Our researcher was shown ads for multiple brands while scrolling through some of the political party pages involved in this research. Among the pages we documented ads being displayed on were the pages of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party, the Mexico state branch of Mexico’s Workers’ Party, the national page of Romania’s Patriots Party, and the page of the Georgia state branch of the US Republican Party.

Our research further identified ads being displayed on campaign posts associated with the US 2025 midterm elections.

Meta’s consistent failure to meet its brand-safety commitment is especially troubling in light of the company’s October 2025 decision to forgo certification and annual audits by the Media Rating Council (MRC). The company had previously displayed its MRC certification as evidence of its adherence to industry standards for brand-safety processes and controls.

The provision of social media monetization services to political parties also poses potential threats to electoral integrity.

By introducing financial incentives, social media platforms may contribute to exacerbating political parties’ use of divisive discourse at the expense of more balanced (and usually less engaging) policy discussion.

Among the main revelations brought forward by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen were references to political parties self-disclosing how they had turned to using increasingly “angry, hateful, polarizing and divisive” language to optimize for engagement and algorithmic amplification.

These tendencies are likely to be exacerbated by political parties imposing financial targets on their social media teams or introducing bonuses tied to platform payouts.

Social media platforms may also directly subsidize political parties' activities, by enrolling them in revenue redistribution programs that are built around engagement-based content royalties.

Beyond offsetting some of the parties' own costs, the promise of royalty payments could be used by political parties to attract social media consultants or agencies who may agree to tie their fees — in whole or in part — to the revenues they help the party generate. Such practices could further exacerbate the risk of social media monetization incentivizing divisive discourse.

The lack of sufficient guardrails around platform monetization services may also facilitate the circumvention of campaign finance laws, which require political parties to disclose campaign contributions and expenditures, as well as abide by certain restrictions.

By granting political parties access to monetization services that are designed to solicit revenue from social media audiences – such as monthly subscription tools (e.g. Facebook Subscriber Hub) or ‘gift’ tools (e.g Facebook Stars) – platforms could be enabling unlawful campaign contributions.

In many countries, including the United States, it is illegal for political parties and political candidates, for example, to accept financial contributions from foreign actors. Political contributions are also subject to financial caps. In their current design, Meta’s audience contribution tools do not support restrictions based on citizenship, nor do they offer sufficient user information for political parties to be able to sort through and identify contributions that they may be required, by law, to return.

While our research found no evidence of wrongdoing, the Facebook page of the Georgia Republican Party presents an interesting case study. Our research reveals active use by the page of Meta’s Subscription and Gift features, a use that Meta allowed to continue throughout the US 2025 midterm elections.

We sought comment from the Georgia State branch of the Republican Party - but did not hear back as of publication.

Our researcher (who otherwise happens to be an American citizen) ran a test from Belgium. Using a Belgian debit card and a recently created account, set up from Belgium, she was able to purchase a subscription to the Georgia Republican Party page, just a few days before the 2025 mid-terms. At no point in the process did Facebook – which approved the payment – ask her to confirm or verify her American citizenship.

By allowing page owners to register payout accounts which may not be formally affiliated with the political party, platforms could also provide a loophole for parties to forgo their disclosure obligations.

Undisclosed earnings obtained through social media monetization services could in turn be used to finance unlawful activities. These may include expenditures in excess of campaign caps, as well as activities that may otherwise be illegal, such as covert information operations, undisclosed payments to social media influencers, or vote buying efforts.

The confluence of social media monetization and politics raises potential risks to brand-safety and electoral integrity, which would warrant further research and pro-active mitigation.

While our research focuses on Facebook, for which we have some data, the risks extend beyond Meta, with every other major platform — including YouTube, TikTok, X, and Snapchat — offering similar monetization services, albeit with less transparency.

Unlike Meta and TikTok , YouTube and X have no policies explicitly addressing political parties’ monetization, which further exacerbates the risks identified in this piece.

At WHAT TO FIX, we’ve been advocating for greater transparency around social media monetization practices, to facilitate greater research, and enable oversight and accountability.

Note: We sought comment from Meta on the present post, as we did on our earlier posts on the company’s monetization of sanctioned entities, police and military, and politicians, but did not hear back.