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You might think, based on the volume of her Facebook posts, that Nieta Aqila is an Albertan who supports separation.
"I signed the Alberta independence petition" because "Canada is not a great country anymore," an account in her name wrote in a popular Facebook group called Alberta Independence that promotes the movement and has more than 100,000 members.
In another post, Aqila said she was harassed and had rocks thrown at her as she canvassed for petition signatures.
The account's posts have generated thousands of reactions, comments and shares in recent months as the issue heated up.
WATCH | Investigating overseas accounts in Alberta separatism groups: Facebook is paying people overseas promoting Alberta separatism | Duration 5:04 CBC’s visual investigations team takes you inside the overseas industry profiting from Alberta separatism. We find more than a dozen overseas accounts posting in the most popular separatist Facebook groups; in some cases, they steal content from real Albertans and brag about making money via Meta’s monetization program.
But the account owner, according to a CBC visual investigation, was posing as a Canadian and is actually a noodle merchant and content creator from Indonesia, who in some cases was just stealing content from real Albertans.
One example of a post Nieta Aqila stole from another user. In the left photo, on April 2, Edmonton resident Brock Ireland posted about canvassing for the movement on Facebook. On the right, on April 3, Aqila used the exact text and photos. (Illustration: Froilan Untalasco/CBC; CBC, Brock Ireland/Facebook, Nieta Aqila/Facebook)
When contacted by CBC, one Albertan whose content was stolen said they felt "absolutely violated."
Nieta Aqila even posted about income she generates from Meta's monetization program, which rewards creators for engagement and solicits subscribers on her personal page.
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