Caulfield South is a small suburb in the south east of Melbourne. Our state electorate is Caulfield. Our state MP is David Southwick (Liberal). David (or his social media team) creates fake accounts on Facebook to post his propaganda.

I am admin for a small community group on Facebook. We have not quite 700 members. We like to find lost dogs and cats in the neighbourhood. Working out what bin week it is rates as IMPORTANT.

So I recently started receiving posts about Davis Southwicks zoom sessions titled "Alternate Roadmap to Recovery" - I approved the initial one but declined the others because the title didn't without sit right without

further explanation on his part is likely linked to the Liberal National Alternative Road Map, which has been vastly at odds with how the current government has successfully handled our Covid-19 response.

I declined these posts. So suddenly new members applied to join the group and they "shared" his post. Odd.

One such member was Elliot Thompson.

Elliot Thompson joined Facebook recently and has no posts. But he wanted to Share David Southwick's post most keenly.

Elliot Thompson isn't real though. He's actually a high school kid Zach Toussaint, who is a basketballer featured in a news report in McHenry County, Illinois, USA,

There have been a few like this. But the one that broke the camel's back (AKA making me lose my patience) was earlier today - a very enthusiastic post from a woman named Sarah Maltzah. She needed to tell us how wonderful Davis Southwick was today!

But Sarah isn't real either! She's actually a nice Jewish lady named Andrea GInsberg who helps with a site about scarves and scarf wearing and is on YouTube.

I have reported this all the Facebook. I have informed the members of the community. I am disgusted that I even have to deal with this.

@SouthwickMP You have acted disgracefully in this manner and should be ashamed. I allowed you to be a part of a community and you contributed nothing, but tried to deceive your constituents. Disgraceful.

Unfortunately it seems that the same posts have been submitted and approved in other local community Facebook groups.

David Southwick has claimed to me in personal correspondence that he did not create or know about the accounts and has insisted that I should remove all of this information as my clear evidence of suspicious behaviour is defamatory.

Did not expect threats of legal action for defamation before I've even had my morning coffee.

Also as is evident from my timeline - I'm a single parent who likes to post about dogs and food. Caulfield South actually has several small older properties that are hard to find but don't cost a fortune. Legal threats against me are only going to look rather pathetic.

It's also very important to note that we still have a lost silkie chick running around the neighbourhood so if anyone finds it please contact me so I can reunite the chick with the very sad owner.

Also - I'm only holding David Southwick to the same standards as my 12 year old:
- If you did it accept responsibility & apologise
- If you didn't please provide supporting evidence so the issue can be solved.

"That other boy must've done it!" does not hold up.

For those speculating about the validity of my claims - the pattern is this:
1. David Southwick submits a post for approval in the FB community group
2. I decline the post (although I approved the first one - it was not well accepted in general by the community)

3. By an amazing coincidence the post is shared right after by either Tyler Southwick, or accounts he has invited, or by the fake accounts
4. None of these accounts share any other posts, comment on other posts, or even merely share a reaction to anything

5. Almost identical posts have been shared to other community groups by the same accounts

Astroturfing a small FB community group is distasteful enough let alone using fake accounts to do so.

Please keep in mind that in NO SENSIBLY CONCEIVABLE WAY are people suddenly joining Facebook with other peoples photographs to share a politician's post literally minutes after his shared post to a tiny FB community group is declined.

(Forgive me if I haven't replied to you or followed back as yet, my mentions on here and Facebook are a bit...busy)

I realise that I am exposing my real name here but both of these screenshots illustrate the astroturfing activity. Unfortunately I was unable to retrieve the fake accounts posting information as it has been removed from Facebook.

The posting pattern for the fake accounts was identical to this which alerted me to the suspicious activity.

I have an update coming soon.

I have further evidence of fake account shenanigans passed onto me from another Facebook community group in the Glen Eira area by @AnaruA85236514 - who is a concerned citizen wanting to get to the bottom of these fake profiles as well.

He grants permission to use his name here.

To give you some idea of the reach of the fraud activity I've decided to list the Facebook groups involved that I am a member of and have spoken with the administrators.

Caulfield South Community 3162 - 700
Glen Eira Residents Action Group - 2,700
Glen Eira Community Hub  5,000

That's a potential of 8,400 sets of eyes on different posts & comments.

Some people like myself are in all groups of course so it's not a true number but what you miss in one group you might see in another.

Regardless it's a not insignificant number.

(Linking) https://twitter.com/gomichild/status/1327957882181095424