Faked Facebook profile stirs discord

A fake Facebook profile has been created and is interacting on the Facebook public group, Dayton Speak Freely. They are using the name, Tracey Kelley. This person created their page on May 6 of this year. Their profile states they live in Starbuck, WA. They have no FB friends, but follow one business in Dayton. This person made no FB posts until July 19, leading me to believe they were just browsing public posts without commenting until now. This person has started conversations in the FB group by asking about candidates running for local office, and publicly shaming one community member, claiming to have learned about her during the Foodstock Festival at Blue Mountain Station.

They wrote, “The one thing we did not enjoy was the busybody of a handful of people talking horribly of the upcoming candidates and a city council member. Negative talks about what terrible things are happening in Dayton because of this and that and some group that has rubbed people the wrong way. After doing some research, my partner and I discovered what seems to be a mean and spiteful woman who is deeply vindictive.”

On July 22, this person asked the group for confirmation of a false statement made about Jack Miller. They didn’t ask if this was true, they asked for confirmation that it was true. It seems clear to me that this person is working on a smear campaign against Jack Miller. They started by smearing a community member who supports him, posting a screenshot of her open support after calling her mean and spiteful and deeply vindictive.

There is a real person named Tracey Kelly, who shares the same profile picture. She has 138 FB friends and appears to live in Great Britain. She used the same profile picture as the Starbuck Tracey Kelley from 2/19/21 until 1/15/22. 

The person who is claiming to be Tracey Kelley living in Starbuck WA is defrauding the public and encouraging locals to make negative comments about two of our community members, one of which is running for public office. This kind of disinformation campaign has been used against other public officials and is destructive to our community. It is egregious and unlawful. If you see obviously fraudulent activity like this, please report it to the authorities, i.e. Facebook and local law enforcement.

Shellie McLeod

Dayton, Wash.