"Being black is not a crime," reads one post. Another features a quote alongside a black and white picture of Nelson Mandela. It reads, "Poverty is not an accident. Like slavery and apartheid, it is man-made and can be removed by the actions of human beings."
These posts, and hundreds of others, were featured prominently on Facebook's largest Black Lives Matter (BLM) page, which had built up a following of almost 700,000 people. But the page, and all its posts, were part of an elaborate scam.
The page featured authentic-looking logos and the familiar yellow and black design that has come to be associated with the global anti-racism movement. Visitors to the page were invited to purchase BLM merchandise and donate to causes associated with it by clicking a link that led to PayPal and DonorBox accounts, among others.
Both the frequency and ferocity of its posts, some of which included footage of black people being mistreated by the police, helped the page to attract more than double the followers than that of the official BLM Facebook page. By all metrics, it was one of the most successful activist pages on social media. Yet, all of its 700,000 followers were seemingly unaware that they had fallen prey to an elaborate scam by a man with no ties to BLM.
As an extensive investigation by CNN revealed last week that the account was allegedly run by Ian MacKay, a white, middle-aged Australian man who apparently worked for the National Union of Workers (NUW). MacKay, who denies the accusations against him, has been suspended from his job, pending an investigation by the NUW. At least some of the $100,000 (£70,000) donated by followers, ostensibly to help fund anti-racism initiatives, allegedly ended up in unidentified Australian bank accounts.
The fallout from this revelation was swift and immediately led to calls for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to explain how it happened. BLM co-founder Patrisse Cullors said the group repeatedly warned Facebook that the page was likely to have been a scam. Facebook said it acted as soon as it was brought to the company's attention.
Brandi Collins, senior campaign director at Color of Change, the largest online racial justice organisation in the US, felt "awful" upon hearing the news. It was surprising that the scammer was Australian, but not that the group were targeted in such a way. “Unfortunately, it's common practice for people to use fake accounts to either take advantage of people, create disharmony or spread misinformation about the movement for black lives,” she says.
"There is a long history of attempts to undermine social justice movements via infiltration. We have seen this play out in the UK police scandal involving Mark Kennedy or with COINTELPRO in the US, and countless incidences where people prey on individuals and our desire to do good in the world or be part of something meaningful."
Even before this scandal, grassroots activists faced difficulties with social media. "It is now much more difficult to build up a Facebook page from scratch without paid advertising, which again makes it harder for grassroots, radical anti-racist groups to use the space,” says Jonathan Stevenson, head of communications at Global Justice Now, an organisation that campaigns in solidarity with social movements to fight injustice. “Google has its own problems, but its program of free adds for non-profits is well ahead of anything Facebook is doing."
As Stevenson says, the impact of social media sites has been "massive" in terms of allowing his organisation to deliver their messages to the public, but he adds that "the barriers to entry tend towards buying power over message power, as with all advertising."
Any activist group that quickly builds up a huge profile leaves itself vulnerable to scammers, as the BLM case shows. It's extremely simple to set up a fake account and online tutorials show how to make a fake page look authentic and reel in followers. But this isn't the first time that the anti-racism movement has been targeted in the past few years. Several investigations into other apparent black activist groups have revealed repeated issues of deception.
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In autumn 2016, the supposed campaign group Blacktivist posted content on its Twitter and Facebook accounts, highlighting racism in the US. According to CNN, they were among hundreds of Russian-linked accounts, which aimed to widen racial divisions during the US presidential election. The Blacktivist accounts were eventually handed over to the US Congress for further investigation.
In another case reported by CNN in October last year, BlackMattersUS and BlackFist – online groups that offered support to activists – were found to have been created by the Internet Research Agency. This company was outed as a Russian troll farm that employed hundreds of people to post pro-Kremlin propaganda using fake identities.
Whether fraudsters and trolls are setting up fake accounts for financial gain or to meddle in democratic processes, such behaviour could undermine activists' tireless efforts to tackle racism. Collins hopes this isn't the case, "I'd like to think that people are smarter than that and won't hold the movement for black lives accountable for the actions of a con artist," she said. "I do think this raises a need for more interventions by Silicon Valley to make sure their platforms are free from hate and scams, and that people can feel safer engaging with them."
The UK’s largest anti-racism and anti-extremism campaign, Hope not Hate, has also repeatedly witnessed deceptive behaviour on social media. "There will always be trolls, and imposters, seeking to exploit the unwary,” says director of communications Nick Ryan. “We produced a report at the end of last year looking at how anti-Muslim extremists, for example, are adept at manipulating social media, purchasing bots, etc, to drive home fake news and hateful messaging. Part of our modus operandi is to get inside these groups and expose how they work, including online."
Almost any activist group looking to make waves must be present on Facebook, Twitter and increasingly, Instagram. But despite its obvious problems with fake accounts, hate speech and trolls, the medium is crucial for helping groups to run successful campaigns. Ryan agrees, explaining that Hope not Hate's social media campaigns include an exposé of far-right activists from across Europe, who hired a ship and harassed NGO rescue vessels in the Mediterranean, which were saving people's lives. One of the organisation's videos about EU migrants was viewed 3.6 million times across social media.
To those less engaged in activism, a few fake social media accounts might not be a major concern but it could cause headaches for organisations that have made significant strides in building up trust. In the US, evidence shows that activism is more popular than it has been for many decades. A recent joint survey by The Washington Post and the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that more Americans are taking their activism to the streets. One in five Americans have protested in the streets or participated in political rallies since the beginning of 2016. Of those, 19 per cent said they had never before joined a march or a political gathering.
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As with the US civil rights movement or protests against the Vietnam War, the work of activists is undoubtedly helping people become politically more engaged. This hard-won progress could all be reversed if the fake-account scams deter potential supporters. Social media activism may sometimes get a bad press, but for many, it's the first step in fighting for a cause they believe in.
Activists are now left wondering about what will be done by Facebook and others to tackle fake accounts. "We have pushed for a public and independent civil rights audit, such as the ones we have seen tech companies like Airbnb do, with tangible results.” Collins says.
Zuckerberg, already under pressure over the Cambridge Analytica scandal, has unveiled at least one upcoming change that may help: soon, anyone in charge of running an account with a large number of followers will need to be verified. "This will make it much harder for people to administer a Page using a fake account, which is strictly against our policies," a statement from the company explained.
But this change will not help any of those who have already been deceived into donating money and support organisations they thought were genuine. Perhaps, though, it will finally send a message to fraudsters and scammers that their rampant abuse of activist groups will no longer be tolerated.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
