National Union of Workers ‘deeply distressed and appalled’ about sham site, which had twice as many followers as official page

This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

An Australian union has sacked two employees linked to a fake Black Lives Matter Facebook page.

On Wednesday the National Union of Workers confirmed it had terminated the employment of two organisers from its Western Australia branch over the page.

A CNN investigation claimed Ian MacKay – an organiser with the union – had helped set up and run a Facebook page called Black Lives Matter as well as other domain names linked to black rights.

Fake Black Lives Matter Facebook page run by Australian union official – report Read more

The group had more than twice as many followers as the official Black Lives Matter page, despite having no ties to the movement.

The investigation quoted sources who said the page may have garnered upwards of $100,000 in donations, at least some of which was directed to bank accounts registered in Australia.

The union’s national secretary, Tim Kennedy, released a statement saying the union was “deeply distressed and appalled by a CNN report regarding sham Black Lives Matter Facebook pages and websites”.

“The NUW has launched an investigation into claims made by a CNN report and has terminated the officials concerned,” he said. “The NUW is not involved in and has not authorised any activities with reference to claims made in CNN’s story.

“The claims made in the report, and subsequent reports, betray the values of the NUW and are abhorrent to all the hard-working NUW officials and members who are tarnished by these claims.

“Further, our values of respect, dignity and equality define us. Every day, we represent workers organising collectively and struggling for a fair go. We stand in solidarity with Black Lives Matter and like grassroots activist organisations nationally and internationally.”



The Guardian understands that the union’s initial investigations satisfied it that any donations to the page had not made their way into the union’s funds.

On Wednesday the WA police force said it was “not aware of any complaints” regarding the sham page. A union spokesperson told the Guardian that officials were “very happy to cooperate with whoever the relevant authorities are”.

Fundraising campaigns associated with the Facebook page were suspended by PayPal, Donorbox and Patreon after they were contacted for comment by CNN.

Facebook said in a statement that the social media site had “investigated this situation as soon as it was brought to our attention, and disabled the page admin for maintaining multiple profiles on the platform”.

MacKay also registered other websites with links to black rights, such as blacklivesnews.com, blackkillingsmatter.com and blackfists.com, among more than 100 site names in total.

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

Archived records on the site describe the site as being “created” by Black Lives Matter to “share the news that mainstream media play down or hide”.