We uncovered the profiles selling assistance to Moroccan migrants | Top Comment Podcast

After roughly 78,000 migrants made the journey from Morocco to the Spanish enclave of Ceuta in a matter of hours at the end of July, reporters across the world were quick to identify the role of social media.

Capitalising on misinformation about a Spanish Supreme Court ruling, millions of posts appeared over several weeks portraying the territory as a viable path to a new life in Europe.

On this episode of Top Comment we take a detailed look at the accounts sharing what we're calling 'mirage content', revealing a network of coordinated profiles spamming the algorithm.

For the first time, we expose a direct link between these faceless creators and those profiting from the movement of people, uncovering an integrated business operation run through Instagram. In response to our reporting, Meta told the BBC: “We have a team monitoring the situation in Ceuta in real time and removing content that violates our policies - including content that offers to provide, facilitate or seek human smuggling services”.

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