Black Lives Matter Scam: Fake Facebook Page and Websites
Ian MacKay, a middle-aged white man in Australia allegedly run the biggest page on Facebook purporting to be part of the Black Lives Matter movement. A review of the page and associated accounts and websites conducted by CNN. The page titled simply "Black Lives Matter," had almost 700,000 followers on Facebook, more than twice as many as the official Black Lives Matter page. It was tied to online fundraisers that brought in at least $100,000 that supposedly went to Black Lives Matter causes in the U.S. At least some of the money, however, was transferred to Australian bank accounts, CNN has learned.
Fundraising campaigns associated with the Facebook page were suspended by PayPal and Patreon after CNN contacted each of the companies for comment. Donorbox and Classy had already removed the campaigns. Facebook then removed the page days later, after disabling the “BP Parker” profile for violating community standards.
Mr MacKay also allegedly ran a series of websites linked to black rights, including blacklivesnews.com, blackkillingsmatter.com and blackpowerfist.com. Domain records showed the latter was registered using Mr MacKay’s union email address in 2015.
Black Lives Matter (BLM) is an international human rights movement, originating in the African-American community, that campaigns against violence and systemic racism towards black people. BLM regularly holds protests speaking out against police killings of black people, and broader issues such as racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality in the United States criminal justice system.
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