General News
18 March, 2026
Social media takedown
THE Cobden Golf Club was left reeling after its 5000-follower Facebook page was taken over by hackers and transformed into a police bodycam video content farm.
The popular Facebook page was regularly used by members to communicate with the public and let them know what was happening at the club.
Around Christmas last year, employee Lisa Arndell said staff from the club noticed strange videos being posted to their Facebook page which none of the other employees had authorised.
“I’m not the one that worked it out that it had been hacked, a couple of weird things had come up on our Facebook page,” she said.
“Trevor (Gardner) must have looked into it and there were all these weird videos and he sent me a message saying don’t use the Facebook page as it’s been hacked and we’ll have to create a new one.
“Him and Daniel Beard got together and created the new Facebook page.”
The page had started posting police bodycam videos, some which were getting hundreds of thousands of views.
The page retained the Cobden Golf Club name, address, information and contact details, but was now being used by the hacker for a completely different purpose – raking in views and likes with farmed content.
Since being taken over, the page has gone up to over 6000 followers and the videos regularly get thousands of interactions.
Ms Arndell said it was hard on the club to lose a source of connection to the community after having to make a new Facebook page and start again.
“It’s been hard – we went from 5000 followers to 200 and something followers,” she said.
“A lot of people are having trouble – they’re looking for the new Facebook page but when you type Cobden Golf Club into the search, it keeps bringing up the old page.
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“It was hard especially for our Week of Golf, trying to promote that.
“It’s made a big difference in trying to promote, from 5000 followers to 200.
“It would have taken years for us to get that reach and we’re back to square one.”
Ms Arndell said the page had been essential to the club and losing it was extremely detrimental.
“We relied on social media and because people are still friends with the old Facebook profile, then they don’t see what’s actually going on with the golf club,” she said.
“We rely on that page, it’s basically our advertising for everything, our raffles – everything.”
In a similar vein, new Cobden business Lord of Chicken lost their brand-new Facebook page after only a week of opening.
They came online saying their business page had been hacked and were forced to make a new one, interrupting the flow of business so soon after starting out.
Western District Newspapers reached out to Facebook parent company Meta to inquire as to what security and assurances businesses could rely on to protect their Facebook pages and why the hacked Cobden Golf Club page was still up and running after being taken over.
Western District Newspapers also asked if the page has been monetized, and if the hacker was making money on the thousands of hits they were getting on their videos.
Meta did not respond prior to publication.