The Political Facebook Trolls in Geraldton

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Every time a story appears on Everything Geraldton's Facebook page that talks about certain political parties, a number of suspicious “community members” chime in in the comments attacking Labor and whatever candidate is being mentioned. We've also noticed it happening with our friends over at the Geraldton Guardian. 

It’s like clockwork. 

We did a little research recently on some of the more active trolls. And the results were... interesting.

First, each account seems to only post content that supports the National party. We haven't noticed this behaviour in support of Liberal, Labor, Greens, or One Nation. That's certainly not to say it doesn't exist. We just haven't yet found it on Everything Geraldton. 

Each account has a lot of political connections, mostly to prominent National Party members. 

Many of the accounts are clearly not real people. 

The following article is our research of two such accounts. 

Here's the first. 

Clive Jenkins. 

A quick glance at Clive’s Facebook account shows he’s very much a fan of the National Party. He reckons he lives in Margaret River, even though he has a very keen interest in Geraldton politics.

And here’s an example of some of the comments he has left. All very much attacking anyone who’s a Labor member, and very pro National party. This one was on a story about Renee Ellis, Geraldton Councillor and Labor candidate. 

And here's Clive lending his support following the National Party's announcement in Geraldton about their hospital plans. 

You get the idea. 

Here's some of Clive's "friends" on Facebook. It's essentially a collection of fake accounts and National Party supporters or members. 

Hey, it’s not against the law to support a particular political party. So what’s the problem here?

Let’s keep digging and find out who Clive actually is. 

This is Clive Jenkins' profile photo. 

Now there's a clever feature in Google where you can upload an image and do a search on it. So let's try it with Clive and see what we can find out. 

And here's the results... wait what?!

So Clive's photo is actually that of convicted paedophile David Jenkins. It's one thing to set up a troll account... but another to use a convicted paedophile's photo.

Here's another troll account that has been super active lately. Albert Knowles. His photo is not a paedophile's as far as we can tell. So that's something. And he ironically shares his name with a British trade union leader from the 1800's.

But he's very much into friending real people, even those who he clearly despises. 

Oh look. Albert is friends with our good buddy Clive. Let's try and find out what kind of comments he leaves around the place. 

Well, he's clearly not a fan of Labor candidate Renee Ellis. But he seems very well informed on local political situations that trigger by-elections. Certainly more informed than your average Joe. 

But check out his comment on this Geraldton Guardian post, and the response from Renee Ellis... Albert has actually added Renee Ellis as a friend. 

It's hard to understand why he'd "friend" someone he so clearly wants to see out of office, unless he was just trying to access her personal posts that can't be seen by the public. 

A little more searching shows that Albert is often liking Clive's comments, and vice versa. 

Here they both are again commenting 16 minutes apart from each other, having a go at Liberal member Ian Blayney.

Last night we ran a fairly boring announcement about Labor.  

Sure enough, like moths to a flame, out came the National Party supporters fake accounts. 

Albert has a slight dig at the shark net. So he's evidently not a Liberal party supporter. And look who "liked" Albert's comment. Old mate Clive. 

Let’s be clear. We’re not asserting that specific politicians are running these accounts. There’s literally no way of knowing who's managing these fake profiles.

We're not suggesting reading Facebook comments is a fruitful pastime either, but the next time you see a “community member” chime in with their clever argument in an attempt to sway public opinion, maybe just click on their name and see if they’re even a real person.

Everything Geraldton spoke with Paul Brown, Nationals candidate for Geraldton, regarding the issue of these trolls. "I've been publicly accused... there's an allegation. I can thoroughly refute that allegation. I'm sure that there's people out there possibly hiding behind it. I'm quite happy to make comments under my own name. You can find comments about a whole range of things where I've commented under my real name. I don't need to hide behind fake accounts. There are a couple of accounts that I consider troll accounts that make regular criticisms of me on Facebook posts. I accept that that's part of my job. When appropriate I respond. But more often than not, I don't. If someone thinks they're a troll account, probably the best thing to do is ignore the comments."

Footnote: Everything Geraldton receives hundreds of comments across our various platforms (website, app, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter) every day, and with a small staff we're unable to monitor every comment made. We'd like to thank the members of the public that point out fake and troll accounts by messaging or emailing us directly. As the above two accounts were the subject of this story, they have not been removed by us at this time.