Mr Mackay, who is both an organiser and branch vice-president, has been suspended from both those roles. Another organiser who allegedly ran the BP Parker Facebook site has also been suspended. NUW official Ian Mackay. A user named "BP Parker" first shared a link to blackpowerfist.com in 2015, days after Mr Mackay had registered the domain, and the same user remained an administrator when the site was recently suspended by Facebook. Fairfax Media has contacted Mr Mackay for comment and understands he joined the NUW seven years ago and was an organiser at its Brisbane office before moving to Western Australia early last year.

Speaking to CNN, Mr Mackay denied running the Black Lives Matter Facebook page, and said buying and selling of domains was a personal hobby. He admitted that he once purchased the domain name for such a website, but later sold it. The CNN investigation found the "Black Lives Matter" Facebook page, which had almost 700,000 followers and was tied to fundraising that brought in at least $US100,000 ($130,000), was a scam with alleged links to the white Australian union official. With more than twice the number of followers of the official Black Lives Matters page, the fraudulent version gathered funds through selling merchandise as well as through online platforms Donorbox, PayPal, Patreon and Classy, claiming the money would be used to support civil rights campaigns in the United States. But CNN found at least some of the money was making its way to Australia, and was told by a source familiar with some of the payments processed that at least one of the fundraising accounts was linked to an Australian IP address and bank account. CNN also found that the Facebook page and associated group consistently linked to websites registered by Mr Mackay, many of which were devoted to discussing black rights, including blackpowerfist.com and blacklivesmatter.media. A 2017 blog post from investigator Jeremy Massler detailed Mr Mackay's ties to these sites and the Facebook page.

Shortly after CNN spoke to Mr Mackay, the Facebook page was deactivated. The campaign's Donorbox, PayPal, Classy and Patreon accounts have all been suspended, following complaints that people had confused it with the official Black Lives Matter campaign, according to CNN. The administrators of the Facebook page remain anonymous, but appear to have remained consistent since 2015. The controversy comes as Facebook struggles to reassure users of the integrity and veracity of the content it hosts, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg prepares to give testimony before US Congress this week. Facebook has previously announced plans to enforce more rigorous identity checks for page administrators, but only if they were attempting to promote certain kinds of content. An Australian spokesman for Facebook said it investigated the situation as soon as it was brought to its attention and had disabled the page administrator 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,” the spokesman said.

The Western Australian government regulates fundraising activity in that state, there being no national regulation of charities in Australia. A spokesman for the WA government's consumer protection department said it only regulated licensed charities. "We do not have any records of an organisation with the name of “Black Lives Matter” licensed under the Charitable Collections Act 1946. A search of the Australian Charities Not-for-profits Commission’s list of registered charities for tax concessions, does not reveal any organisation with that name. If it was licensed we would be making enquiries into whether the licence should be revoked and review other options such as referrals to other agencies," the spokesman said. The Australian Charities and Not for Profits Commission regulates charities and their governance structures, but not their fundraising activities. Fundraising Institute of Australia chief executive Rob Edwards said the alleged fraud was more likely to fall under the jurisdiction of Australian consumer law as possible false and misleading conduct.