Coup engulfs Facebook’s largest Corbyn group

According to some reports, last Sunday saw the beginning of a virtual coup of Facebook’s largest Jeremy Corbyn supporters group entitled ‘I’m backing Jeremy Corbyn‘.

I’m backing Jeremy Corbyn group, cover photo missing.

Today, Thursday, saw that virtual coup take hold to its fullest, at just before midnight the groups membership had plummeted from over 15,000 members to less than 8,000. (5,000 by 1.30am Friday morning)

An account, presumably fake, by the name of ‘Artem Kalita‘ had allegedly posed as a representative of the Labour Party and convinced the original administration team to allow him onto the admin panel. In the world of Facebook groups any administrator of a Facebook group can kick anyone out of the group including the groups creator. 

Artem Kalita, Fake account

This is exactly what happened leaving Artem the sole administrator of the group. Since then the group has been changed from a public group, where anyone can find the group, to a secret group, meaning no one can find the group via a Facebook search. 

Group changed from Open to Secret making the group inaccessible to outsiders

In addition to that the groups cover photo was removed, anti-Corbyn posts were put up within the group and as mentioned earlier members are now being removed from that group and it is expected that by some time on Friday the group will be down to zero members. 

In the meantime there has been a drive to warn members of the group and provide alternative groups to join to keep abreast of Labour news. (Details below) 

Whilst the actions of the individual in question poses no threat to users of Facebook or the group in question it will cause an inconvenience as they seek out other sources of information and means the core 15,000 members will now be spread more thinly across other groups, this though is likely to be easily overcome rendering the attackers efforts useless and pointless. 

In a similar attack just a few days ago the Facebook page ‘Red Labour‘ which also had several thousand members was also taken over. It is unclear if it was the same person behind the attacks but according to some reports the creator of Red Labour was the same as the creator of the I’m backing Jeremy Corbyn group meaning if the creator was duped for one, then it will have been easier to have been duped for the second. 

It appears dozens if not hundreds of people have reported the Facebook profile of the attacker to Facebook and according to some people his account was briefly taken off line, however his account was later re-established. 

Artems Facebook profile has one key pointer as to his agenda as shown by the image below, some have speculated that aside from just being a Conservative Party supporter the profile may be what is known as a professional troll. 

David.Cameron email address

This is someone who is paid to conduct actions like that has been described in this article, the only question that would remain is by whom? Conservative Party action groups? Official or unofficial Conservative groups? Some have suggested it could be the work of Britain First (although let’s not give them the credit for this, they can barely muster a meeting, let alone the downing of an established page and group). 

The idea of paid trolls is not outlandish to suggest. Israel have admitted they use paid military personnel to influence online debate in favour of their circumstances and the British Government have also admitted to the possibility of using military personnel to conduct similar actions against ‘online extremism’, and we all know David Cameron’s thoughts on Corbyn and his supporters. 

Ex members of the group who follow old links to the group are now met with this

 

Below are all the details you need to catch up and get back in touch with Corbyn Supporters.

We support Jeremy Corbyn was set up as an alternative group and people are being re-directed here where possible 

For the latest on what’s happening, this group was set up at the link

Other Corbyn groups that are established include Jeremy Corbyn leads us to 2020 and Jeremy Corbyn will be prime minister

If you find that you need to visit the new Red Labour page then click this new link here

As usual please support our blog by following us and also visiting our own group at Extreme Resistance 

Spread the word about this incident to not only inform others so they know where to find other Corbyn supporters but also to provide a much needed warning about trusting new administrators into groups.