The CBC headline is pretty leading. It says, “Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism.”

Technically, the claim in the extended article from Canada’s state broadcaster is true. In reality, though, the payments are minuscule and don’t represent some conspiracy of foreign interference from hostile states.

Because the topic of Alberta’s pending referendum is hot, it has drawn attention from people wanting to make money from social media traffic.

It was found in April that a Dutch content creator had spawned a number of fake YouTube channels to capitalize on the independence issue. The dollars earned were significant, but it didn’t mean that YouTube was specifically paying to promote independence, nor that it was some form of foreign interference from the Netherlands itself.

It was just some profiteering individuals, and YouTube has since shut the accounts down.

With this latest CBC article, they go way out on a limb as they desperately try to find evidence of foreign actors being paid to tear Canada asunder.

The primary account they focused on was a person going by the name Nieta Aqila, who, it turns out, is a noodle vendor from Indonesia. She was piggybacking on Meta discussions about Alberta’s independence and had earned an earthshattering $14 USD in one month!

If Meta is participating in a conspiracy to pay foreigners to mess with Canada, they are rather frugal with it.

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In total, CBC’s exhaustive investigation found 14 foreign accounts in Meta groups related to Alberta independence. Among tens of thousands of accounts which were domestic.

The reporter hoped to find confirmation of a grand foreign plan to disrupt Alberta’s referendum process when McGill's Media Ecosystem Observatory was contacted. Alas, they were surely disappointed when McGill’s representative Aengus Bridgman said the false accounts only make up a fraction of the discourse on Meta.

The piece noted that Meta groups about Alberta independence are very active and have hundreds of posts per day spread among them. Hundreds of posts on social media in a day amount to a teaspoon of water drawn from the Pacific.

There are a handful of foreign individuals trying to make a few bucks by posing as Alberta independence supporters (and probably detractors) on social media channels. It doesn’t mean the platforms are supporting the independence movement, nor does it mean these people are supported by hostile foreign governments.

As the CBC found with what was likely an expensive deep dive, it usually turns out to just be a destitute noodle vendor from a poor country trying to make a few extra dollars to pay the bills.