00:03Hello and welcome to the Cube, Euronews' fact-checking show.
00:07In 2025, the EU-sanctioned influencer Nathalie Am, activist Yvonne Afroa and media executive Justin Tagu
00:14for their involvement in pro-Russian influence operations targeting African audiences.
00:20Under EU-sanctioned rules, funds or economic resources cannot legally be made available to sanctioned individuals.
00:26But researchers from Dutch tech accountability non-profit What2Fix say social media accounts linked to the sanctioned figures
00:34continue to display monetization features after sanctions were imposed.
00:38So how do these monetization systems work?
00:41There's different ways that you can make money as a creator and you have a number of services that are
00:45off-platform
00:46and then you have a bunch of services that are facilitated directly by the platform.
00:51The most notable of those are the royalty payment programs where the platform is actually the one that's making direct
00:58payment
00:58to those accounts based on the engagement that they generate.
01:02Similarly to the subscription service for Meta, we see the same thing with TikTok, we see the same thing with
01:07X.
01:07So there's a much more direct link and much more direct involvement of the platform.
01:11The League de Défense Noire Africaine page linked to Sylvain Afroa still had Facebook stars enabled in early 2026.
01:18The feature allows followers to send digital gifts that can later be converted into cash.
01:24But researchers were unable to establish if those funds were ultimately paid out to these accounts.
01:29After researchers raised concerns, TikTok later removed the accounts linked to Sylvain Afroa,
01:35while YouTube removed a channel membership feature linked to the League de Défense Noire Africaine.
01:40We also identified a new TikTok account linked to Sylvain Afroa that appeared after the original one was removed.
01:46TikTok later removed this account after Euronews flagged it.
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