Marcus Carpenter founded a sinister online Facebook group and ran it under the false name, “Markus Carpenter”.
Marcus Carpenter, the extremist from Facebook referred to in my last article, has disappeared along with a number of objectionable posts. Neither he nor his employers, who I politely reached out to, have denied the allegations against him. However, the group has yet to probably make good the harm and distress caused by their actions and evidence of serious racism by members, tolerated and empowered by group administrators, has now emerged. I will be doing longer posts in the week, this is just an interim update. What is regrettable is that, whilst they have taken some action, the remaining group administrators have not reached out as to how to make things right. It is probably sensible that they do, as otherwise there are likely to be serious consequences.
And then there were five. Marcus is gone from the group administrators list. Little hint: the others might want to reconsider their stance because, for example, large employers like an opticians chain may consider their content to be incompatible with their brand, indeed to be gross misconduct and a fitness to practice issue.
As of today the list of administrators and moderators of the Facebook group concerned no longer contains Marcus – even when viewed by an acquaintance they have not blocked or disagreed with. This is unsurprising. Firstly at least some of the administrators will be facing legal action from me over approving an anonymous post claiming all my Facebook friends are minors (none are under 18), which has now disappeared. That was malicious. Furthermore, I have been copied in on a number of emails to and about Marcus Carpenter and others. Some are legitimate complaints to his employers. Some are unlawful (and I expressly condemn threats – please do not do it) but even the unlawful complaints are legitimate insofar as they complain of online wrongdoing by Mr Carpenter over a long period.
MHN also received a written request from an anonymous person who was seeking group moderator Charlie Day’s address. They felt they had longstanding grievances with the group. However, I refused the request and asked the anonymous person not to contact me, because of other aspects of the content they had forwarded me suggested they may use the information for unlawful purposes.
