CAMPAIGNERS accused social media giant Meta of turning the “migrant crisis into a marketplace” today.

A damning new report by Open Rights Group (ORG) reveals how Meta has profited from people seeking safety, enabling the government to target them with threatening campaigns and criminals with scams. 

It noted that between 2021 and 2022, the Home Office under the previous Tory government ran a series of “fear-based” adverts, aiming to deter refugees from crossing the Channel in small boats.

Delivered in collaboration with Seefar, which implements “migrant behaviour change campaigns,” the ads showed sinking boats, search dogs, and military-style drones, warning migrants could be arrested or drowned.

An investigation funded by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research (SIPR) found that they were written in Arabic, Pashto, and Vietnamese, and designed to target refugees in northern France and Belgium to deter them from crossing.

The targeting was highly invasive and split into 600 segments.