An influential Alice Springs crime Facebook page, Action for Alice 2020, has been suspended for “bullying and harassment”.
Earlier this month, Crikey reported on the controversial Facebook page which posts photographs and videos of alleged crime and antisocial behaviour to its 60,000 followers. The page’s posts — which predominantly depict Indigenous Australians, including young locals — has fuelled racism and calls for vigilante justice from its followers.
The page’s founder, Darren Clark, is a local baker and recipient of federal funding for promoting food security in remote Indigenous communities. He defended the page, saying critics should instead “focus on the people at risk here”.
Now the Facebook page has been restricted by Meta for “bullying and harassment” after posting a video of fighting youths, ABC News reports.
Clark told the ABC that the ban was extended to a month after he spoke to Facebook: “This one was pretty tame, compared to a lot of other stuff that’s been on social media and other stuff that I’ve posted in the past.”
Undeterred, Clark said he intended to expand beyond Facebook and Alice Springs into new platforms and locations.
“We’ll take this to Twitter now. We’ll start a YouTube channel, so [just you wait] if you think we’re big now,” he said. “We’ll broaden this now and we’ll make this a northern Australian site, and we’ll bring the top half of Australia together, and we’ll show the federal government what exactly is going on because they can’t hide it any more.”
