Facebook removes page which used identities of dead people to smear human rights journalist

Clare Rewcastle Brown complained that the Facebook page was a platform for a YouTube-hosted animation film which branded her a liar and a forger

Ms Rewcastle Brown complained that the Facebook page was a platform for a YouTube-hosted animation film which branded her a liar and a forger (Rex)

The Facebook page at the centre of a dirty tricks campaign which used the identities of dead people to host fake Twitter accounts and smear a British human rights journalist has been removed.

The campaign, highlighted this week in The Independent, was directed against the blogger Clare Rewcastle Brown, sister-in-law of the former Prime Minister Gordon Brown. The tactics have been condemned by senior PR industry figures.

Ms Rewcastle Brown complained that the Facebook page was a platform for a YouTube-hosted animation film which branded her a liar and a forger. She took legal action but Facebook claimed that the content of the page was not in breach of its rules.

The smears followed her reporting of alleged corruption on her website Sarawak Report. She published documents detailing how $700m from a state fund was found in the bank accounts of Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak. Officials in Kuala Lumpur say the money came from an unnamed Arab donor.

Ms Rewcastle Brown said: “I am pleased that the site, which had been anonymously commissioned for money to deliberately discredit and defame me, has now been pulled down. But I am dismayed that it was not Facebook but the perpetrators who seem to have backed down.”

The YouTube animation has also been removed. The fake Twitter accounts remain on the social media site although the photographs of dead people, including a young British Arctic explorer, have been replaced with other images.