The lobbying firm run by Boris Johnson’s close ally Sir Lynton Crosby has secretly built a network of unbranded “news” pages on Facebook for dozens of clients ranging from the Saudi government to major polluters, a Guardian investigation has found.

In the most complete account yet of CTF Partners’ outlook and strategy, current and former employees of the campaign consultancy have painted a picture of a business that appears to have professionalised online disinformation, taken on a series of controversial clients and faced incidents of misogynistic bullying in its headquarters.

They said that such was the culture of secrecy within the firm that staff working on online disinformation campaigns, which selectively promoted their clients’ viewpoints on anonymised Facebook pages that followed a common formula, used initials rather than full names on internal systems and often relied on personal email accounts to avoid their work being traced back to CTF and its clients.

The disclosures will raise pressure on the prime minister to distance himself from CTF, with former staff members warning that the company might wield substantial influence in the new administration. CTF gave Johnson an interest-free loan to cover office and staffing costs earlier this year, while Crosby’s partners in the business are Mark Textor and Mark Fullbrook, with Fullbrook taking a leave of absence to run Johnson’s campaign for the Tory party leadership along with David Canzini.

The news follows the Guardian’s April report that Crosby’s company was behind a series of hugely influential pro-Brexit Facebook groups, which spent as much as £1m seeding the idea of a no-deal exit from the EU in the minds of the British public.

But the latest revelations reveal that the company has pursued that approach more broadly, in the service of previously unreported corporate interests and foreign governments.

And they expose a major flaw in Facebook’s political transparency tools, which make it possible for Crosby’s company – which boasts on its website that it deploys “the latest tools in digital engagement” – to use the social network to run professional-looking “news” pages reaching tens of millions of people on highly contentious topics, without apparently disclosing that they are being overseen by CTF Partners on behalf of paying clients.

Based on discussions with the current and former employees and examination of a large number of internal documents, the Guardian can reveal the extent of the astroturfing campaign:

How the company took millions of pounds from the Saudi Arabian government in 2018 to burnish the reputation of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman, who has subsequently been implicated in the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.



How the company worked with the party of former Malaysian prime minister Najib Razak, who has since been implicated in one of the world’s biggest-ever corruption scandals, in the run-up to the country’s last general election. Razak has denied any wrongdoing.



CTF’s role in political campaigns in countries criticised for their human rights records, ranging from Zimbabwe to Sri Lanka to war-torn Yemen.



How CTF specialises in fighting regulation by seeking to influence key politicians, with campaigns in support of coal power, tobacco, and against cyclists.

CTF declined to comment on their methods or clients but said they operated within the law and accused the Guardian of relying on “false or distorted facts”. They dismissed the idea that the company or Crosby could exercise any influence on the prime minister.

The company’s approach is a sophisticated application of the well worn communications technique of astroturfing, where political campaigners attempt to create the perception of an upswell of grassroots support for a cause.

One former employee described how Crosby’s business created Facebook pages on specific topics to spread disinformation to interested members of the public in the UK and abroad. “It would all be anonymised and made to look as though they are a news aggregator with a specialist angle,” the employee said. “For instance, if we were working to promote the use of coal, it would be an anti-environmental page. You might make a page designed to attract pro-Trump types and get them revved up about green subsidies.”

Staff members said that they created websites and Facebook pages which appeared to be independent online news sources with names such as Why Electricity Matters, Reporting Yemen and Londoners for Transport, but instead could be used to distribute highly selective information which reached tens of millions of readers.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The astroturfed ‘news’ page Londoners for Transport linked to Sir Lynton Crosby’s CTF Partners. Photograph: web

Multiple supposedly independent pages on behalf of different clients could then be managed by Crosby employees through a single high-level “business manager” account, which sidesteps Facebook’s transparency tools. The connection between the pages is not visible to normal Facebook users.

Secrecy was a paramount consideration in the communications strategy, the staffers said, leading to instances of the careful use of initials instead of full names on Facebook’s internal systems and the occasional reliance on non-corporate email accounts. Some resorted to using ProtonMail, an encrypted email service, to avoid being traced.

The Guardian understands that CTF Partners earned millions of pounds representing the Saudi Arabian government, with the account headed by longtime Crosby associate Mark Domitrak – a former lobbying boss at British American Tobacco. The company helped coordinate press coverage around the arrival of crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in the UK for his state visit in early 2018, prior to the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

Sam Lyon, the head of CTF Partners’ London office who previously worked as Johnson’s director of communications, was a member of the team who worked with the party of Malaysia’s then prime minister, Najib Razak. The Asian politician was later toppled amid ongoing accusations of involvement in a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal. He has always denied any wrongdoing.

The supposed news sources, which were liked by millions of users and reached tens of millions through the use of paid Facebook adverts, were grown using the social network’s promotional tools, with assistance from Facebook sales teams who encouraged the purchase of more promotions. Once CTF employees found a tactic that provoked a strong reaction, they would double down, according to one of the ex-employees: “If you’re after the Maga [make America great again] crowd you just target people like this. Then once you’ve got an audience you just target people like that.”

One such news page – entitled GreenWatch – published repeated attacks against subsidies for “wasteful onshore wind farms” using the slogan “keeping the green lobby honest”, without any sign it was overseen by Crosby’s company, which had a contract with major coal miner Glencore. Other Facebook campaigns promoted the construction of coal power stations in India using pages with names such as Bright Bangla.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Pages purporting to be independent news pages on the war in Yemen did not disclose that CTF worked on behalf of the Saudi government. Photograph: web

Pages purporting to be independent news pages on the war in Yemen with names such as Middle East Diplomat and Iran in Focus did not disclose that CTF worked on behalf of the Saudi government, which is heavily involved in the war. The disinformation network uncovered by the Guardian also included political pages in African nations with titles such as Inside Mauritania and Free & Fair Election Zimbabwe, which purported to provide fact-based information on what was going on in the two countries, without disclosing the source of funding or work on behalf of political campaigns.

Many of the Facebook pages were deleted after the Guardian began making enquiries. After being presented with the Guardian’s findings about the scale of the company’s online disinformation campaign, Facebook said it did not want to start regulating what constituted a legitimate news source.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A screengrab of the page for Free & Fair Zimbabwe Election. Photograph: web

It also said the network of pages pretending to be news sources on behalf of corporate and state clients did not break their rules on “coordinated inauthentic behaviour”, a term used to shut down disinformation networks overseen by foreign governments in Russia and Iran. This is because Crosby’s employees used their real names on internal Facebook administration tools – information that is not available to the general public. The Guardian has seen documents that suggest Facebook has been aware of the issue involving the network of CTF pages since late last year.

The company said: “Our review to-date suggests the majority of these pages to be operated by real people and do not currently violate our coordinated inauthentic behaviour policy. However, we take seriously the information shared by the Guardian and are continuing to review the activity of the pages mentioned.”

Existing Facebook rules on political transparency only require an individual to be put up as the public face of a campaign, without disclosing who is ultimately paying for it or overseeing the account, a tactic used in Crosby’s pro-Brexit campaigns. The company said it was looking to add additional disclosures but suggested that government regulation was needed: “These examples could highlight the case for new rules since internet platforms are not currently required to find out who is paying page admins or managers.”

CTF through their lawyers said any suggestion the company produced “fake news” or that Facebook has taken action against them or their clients was false and defamatory.

Johnson has a longstanding personal relationship with Crosby, who has played a key role in every Conservative election campaign since 2005. Last weekend the Sunday Times quoted a “source close to Crosby” claiming that Johnson had talked to him “frequently” since being elected.

Crosby’s lawyer said that any suggestion CTF or Crosby could exert influence “on account of their ‘relationship’ with Mr Johnson ignores the reality of the decision-making and policy process in Westminster and Whitehall”.

Although CTF declined to comment on their methods and which clients they had worked for, citing commercial confidentiality rules, they said employees always operated within the law and accused the Guardian’s journalists of relying “on false or distorted facts and improperly leaked documents as part of a political agenda”.

“That is not public-interest journalism: it is agenda-driven and irresponsible journalism,” they added.