Sri Lankan influencer admits stoking Islamophobia in Britain

LONDON (MNTV)  — A Sri Lankan social media influencer has admitted building a lucrative business by pushing Islamophobic and anti-migrant narratives at British audiences, raising fresh questions about how hate content is rewarded on major platforms.

Geeth Sooriyapura, who flaunts a luxury lifestyle online and calls himself a “Facebook ads king,” told the UK-based The Bureau of Investigative Journalism that he has earned more than $300,000 from Facebook pages and groups tailored to older UK users. 

He said he deliberately targets “old people … because they are the ones who don’t like immigrants” and added that many in Britain “don’t really like people from our countries living there.”

Investigators linked 128 Facebook pages and groups, with a combined following of about 1.6 million users, to Sooriyapura and students he trains as a self-styled “Facebook monetization expert and coach.” 

While the pages appear to be grassroots UK political communities, they are part of a coordinated network run from Sri Lanka that profits from high-engagement divisive content.

One of his pages falsely claimed earlier this year that London Mayor Sadiq Khan would reserve new public housing only for Muslims so they could live near mosques and halal shops. The post sparked a torrent of abuse, including calls for Khan to be deported or hanged and comments warning of an impending “civil war” in the UK. 

A spokesperson for Khan said such “fake and racist content has real-world consequences” because it stokes hatred and deepens social division.

Sooriyapura urges his trainees to focus on immigration, race and culture-war talking points, describing them as “strong trigger” topics that reliably go viral in the UK. 

Some posts repurpose images of African men on overcrowded boats in the Mediterranean, overlaid with slogans such as: “Share if you want Britain to put its OWN PEOPLE before foreigners looking for handouts!” 

Other clips are AI-generated, including one video showing a naval ship ramming dinghies full of migrants, who are then thrown into the sea, accompanied by the caption: “Who really wants to see something like this?”

The network’s UK-focused pages consistently attack the Labour Party, amplify “stop the boats” rhetoric, and praise Reform UK and its leader Nigel Farage. 

AI-generated images portray Khan and Prime Minister Keir Starmer behind bars, while one post depicted Starmer in Islamic clothing with text branding him “Ostarmer Bin Laden” and accusing him of crimes against white Christians and pensioners.

Meta’s own business tools help turn this engagement into cash. Sooriyapura and his students monetize their content through the company’s in-stream ads program, which places adverts before, during or after videos. 

Internal screenshots shared with investigators show one of his many pages earning more than £1,000 in a single month. In private groups, trainees circulated AI-generated images of Meta chief executive Mark Zuckerberg sitting beside piles of money, thanking him for “helping people in Sri Lanka.”

Rights advocates say the investigation highlights how racism and Islamophobia have become a profitable business model in the UK’s digital ecosystem. 

Official figures show Islamophobic hate crimes have risen by 20 percent in the year to March 2025, and analysts warn that financially incentivized networks like Sooriyapura’s will keep multiplying unless platforms act more aggressively against monetized hate and political disinformation.