A Sri Lankan influencer claims to have made £230,000 running Facebook pages posting anti-migrant and Islamophobic disinformation about Britain.
Geeth Sooriyapura and his students are behind more than 100 pages that make claims including that the Labour Party is owned and operated by Islam, and London’s council houses are available only to Muslims.
He runs an academy teaching others how to set up such pages, advising them to target the elderly ‘because they are the ones who don’t like immigrants’.
Sooriyapura then makes money from adverts shown in videos on these pages, and flaunts his luxurious lifestyle on social media.
The Sri Lankan and his students are allegedly linked with 128 Facebook pages and groups with a combined following of 1.6million users, an investigation by The Bureau of Investigative Journalism found.
On his Instagram feed, Sooriyapura shows off expensive watches, shares images of himself and friends dining at five-star restaurants and films videos at a luxury apartment fitted with a pool.
His profile states that he is a ‘Facebook monetisation expert’ who has coached more than 2,500 students around the world.
One of his pages stated in March that London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan promised to build 40,000 council homes that would be available only to Muslims, so they could be ‘near Mosques and Halal food shops’.
Sooriyapura claims that one single page earned him more than £1,000 in a month – the equivalent of about three months’ average salary in Sri Lanka.
Geeth Sooriyapura posts on social media about his lavish lifestyle
An example of a fake news story posted on one of Sooriyapura’s Facebook pages
In a YouTube tutorial, he advises students to target Britain because of the high engagement with political topics such as immigration.
‘They don’t like people from our countries living there – not just Sri Lankans, but even more so Indians,’ he said in the clip.
The Facebook pages, which often have multiple spelling and grammatical errors, have names including Together for Britain, Proper British Pride, and It’s Real British Here.
Many share fake news stories and AI-generated images calling for Sir Sadiq and Sir Keir Starmer to resign.
One fake video depicts the Prime Minister kissing Labour Party donor Lord Alli.
One page published a fake video of Sir Keir Starmer kissing Labour Party donor Lord Alli
Sooriyapura claimed he was simply educating people on Facebook monetization and there had been a ‘misunderstanding’
Posts include suggestions Muslims are not offended by sex attacks and suicide bombings, conspiracy theories about white people being replaced by non-whites and messages describing migrants as invaders.
When approached for comment, Sooriyapura told TBIJ: ‘I think this is a misunderstanding. We don’t encourage to spread violence. And how could you tell I have been running 128 pages?
‘We just educate people on facebook monetuzation [sic] and audience targeting so after that students target audience of there [sic] own interests … I have nothing to say about this.’
A spokesman for Sir Sadiq said: ‘Fake and racist content online has real world consequences. It can stoke hatred as well as fuel prejudice and division.
‘The rise of AI is supercharging the spread of disinformation, making it easier to create highly convincing content at scale and increasingly realistic deepfakes.
‘Social media companies must work harder and faster to protect users and prevent this kind of content proliferating on their platforms.’
A spokesman from Facebook parent company Meta said: ‘We removed the pages that violated our policies on inauthentic behaviour.’
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