Meta launches probe into Reform MS’s social media accounts

Emily Price 

Meta has launched an investigation into the social media accounts of a Reform MS after she declared in the Senedd’s register of interests that she was being paid for “content”.

Gŵyr Abertawe Member of the Senedd Francesca O’Brien added the new entry to the Welsh Parliament’s official public record of financial interests on September 28.

It showed she had began employment with Meta’s main European operating subsidiary and regional headquarters, Meta Platforms Ireland Ltd, on August 31.

Meta owns and operates several prominent social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads.

Under “nature of the post” O’Brien simply wrote, “content”.

She marked the role as Band 4, indicating she is earning between £1001 and £2500 a year from Meta, devoting less than 5 hours per week to the position.

However, Meta’s official policy does not allow politicians to be paid for their content.

The company explicitly prohibits elected and appointed government officials, political candidates and political parties from accessing its monetisation programs.

Despite this, there have been instances of enforcement failures where certain politician or candidate pages were able to improperly enrol in Meta’s monetisation features.

Nation.Cymru contacted Meta to ask why O’Brien was receiving payments for content and what that content involved.

We pointed out that the Reform politician had herself declared the payments in the Senedd’s register of interests.

Meta responded confirming they had launched an investigation into O’Brien’s Facebook and Instagram accounts.

Nation.Cymru invited O’Brien to comment on the probe into her social media accounts and clarify exactly what content she had received payment for.

We also asked whether she was aware of concerns that politicians using contentious issues to generate “clicks”, rather than speaking out from genuine conviction, could undermine public trust in democracy.

The Reform MS did not respond.

O’Brien was elected as a Reform UK MS in May’s Welsh election, having previously served as a Welsh Conservative councillor and worked as a staffer for former Tory MS Tom Giffard.

After jumping ship to Nigel Farage’s party, she attracted the backing of far-right group Voice of Wales, whose founders regularly share and promote her content on Facebook.

Before defecting to Reform UK, O’Brien’s Facebook posts attracted considerably less engagement, with some videos published while she was a Welsh Conservative gaining just a few hundred views.

Since joining Reform, her social media following has grown to more than 12,000 on Facebook and 2,455 on Instagram.

O’Brien’s anti-immigration posts on Facebook attract significant engagement, with a recent video of her Senedd speech calling for a ban on face coverings in Wales amassing more than 260,000 views.

Another video showing the Reform MS complaining that Swansea Bay University Health Board was hiring nurses from oversees gained more than 160,000 views.

Some of the high engagement videos posted by O’Brien are only seconds long and contain no speech.

One video, lasting less than 15 seconds, shows O’Brien simply walking into First Minister’s Questions wearing a flowery dress.

It attracted more than 400,000 views.

Another silent video dubbed with music shows O’Brien smiling and pointing at the entrance of Reform’s annual conference.

It gained 185,000 views.

A separate short clip showing her silently pointing towards Reform’s stand at the Royal Welsh Show attracted more than half a million views.

In recent weeks, the House of Lords have proposed a crackdown on social media payments to politicians amid fears it “incentivises extreme commentary”.

Social media algorithms reward high engagement, prompting concerns that politicians who profit directly from views have a financial incentive to publish increasingly extreme or divisive content to maximise their reach.

The UK Parliament’s register of members’ financial interests shows that several politicians have received payments linked to their social media activity, including Reform UK’s leader and deputy leader Nigel Farage and Richard Tice who have received payments from X.

Farage’s 2024 register of interests also revealed that he had received payments from Meta.