Action for Alice 2020 founder Darren Clark moves to Twitter and TikTok

NT social media identity Darren Clark has warned ‘you can’t stop the truth’ after a social media giant silenced him with a month-long ban. Find out where he will now spread his message.

A controversial Alice Springs social media account has been hit with a ban from Facebook, but its founder says it’s “only made us bigger”.

Darren Clark, who founded Action For Alice 2020 to raise awareness of the rising crime rate in Alice Springs, said he was hit with a 29-day ban after posting footage of a woman throwing chairs in a Yeperenye food-court.

Mr Clark said the post was pinned to the top of the page for about two and a half weeks before it was removed by Facebook last Thursday for “bullying and harassment”.

He then contacted Facebook disputing the ban, after which the social media giant apologised and reposted the video.

Action for Alice 2020 founder Darren Clark believes a 29-day Facebook ban will only bring more attention to the rising crime-rate in Alice Springs, stating ‘you can’t stop the truth’. Picture: SkyNews

But the video was taken down again on Friday when he was given the ban notice.

The page is still live, but Mr Clark cannot post any new content on the site.

Mr Clark said the ban had “only made us bigger” and he had now expanded to other social media platforms including Twitter and TikTok.

“We’ll have a website, I’ve got all the URL and domain name registered, that’s all done,” he said.

“It’s all sitting there and I’ll be working with the tecchy’s (on Tuesday) afternoon.

“Everything will be up this week.

“You can’t stop the truth.”

Mr Clark said while he would go back to Facebook once the ban lapsed, he would be focusing on diversifying his platforms.

Darren Clark’s bakery was broken into for the 42nd time following the ban. Picture: Supplied

It comes as Mr Clark’s bakery was broken into for the 42nd time over the weekend.

Mr Clark said the recent focus on alcohol-bans by visiting politicians had ignored a youth-crime wave which had impacted the town for years.

“Everybody came up here and it was ‘the alcohol bans, the alcohol bans’, but everybody forgot that four years before those alcohol bans lapsed our youth crime here was out of control,” he said.

“So everybody came out here and was focusing on the alcohol laws but no-one was mentioning the youth crime.

“I knew what would happen. Give it a couple of weeks and it will be back to what it was here.”

A spokeswoman from Meta – the company that owns Facebook – told The Australian it had investigated Action for Alice 2020 and found posts were correctly removed for violating bullying and harassment policies.

“One piece of content was appealed by the admin and incorrectly reinstated - this content has now been removed,” the spokeswoman said.

“We may place restrictions on pages and admins that repeatedly break our rules; for example, we may temporarily restrict them from posting, commenting, or sending messages.”