Biggest Black Lives Matter Facebook page run by white scammer

The Facebook page and associated accounts and websites, had almost 700 000 followers, more than twice as many as the official Black Lives Matter page, CNN reported.

The page ran online fundraisers to the tune of $100 000 for Black Lives Matter causes in the US, but some of the money was transferred to Australian bank accounts.

People who thought they were contributing to the anti-white movement, were actually contributing to the accounts of a white Australian Ian Mackay, instead.

MacKay was a member of the National Union of Workers official in Australia until his recent suspension because of his fundraisung scam. The union represents thousands of workers across various industries in Australia.

A spokesperson for the National Union of Workers confirmed that he had been suspended together with one other official while it investigates the scam.

The fundraising campaigns on the Facebook page were suspended by PayPal, Donorbox, Classy, and Patreon after CNN contacted them. The Facebook page had consistently linked to websites tied to MacKay.

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s is currently giving testimony before Congress on privacy. Facebook has meanwhile announced plans for verifications of identity and location. However, Facebook initially said the BLM page did not violate its “Community Standards”.

With almost 40 000 members, the BLM Facebook group was also the biggest group supporting the Black Lives Matter movement in the US.

The high-ranking Australian union official not only ran Black Lives Matter but also other domain names linking to so-called black rights to solicit donations from the movement’s supporters. The other websites were blacklivesnews.com, blackkillingsmatter.com and backfists.com, among more than 100 site names in total.

Domain records show that in 2015 MacKay registered the site blackpowerfist.com, which operated as a Reddit-like discussion forum that encouraged donations. Mackay used his union email address to register the site.

The NUW’s national secretary, Tim Kennedy, told the Guardian that the union was not involved in the scam. “The NUW is not involved in and has not authorised any activities with reference to claims made.”

In response, Facebook said: “We investigated this situation as soon as it was brought to our attention, and disabled the page admin for maintaining multiple profiles on the platform”.

“We continue to look into the situation and will take the necessary action in line with our policies.”