A blog aimed at outing people who are racist on social media to their employers has been criticised for its internet vigilantism.

Racists Getting Fired was set up following the onslaught of racist social media comments during the recent unrest in Ferguson. The Tumblr page asks for submissions of personal information belonging to people who post racist remarks on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram – and then encourages vigilantes to bring it to the attention of the person’s employers.

For example, it calls on those willing to contact a business to say they don’t wish to patronise a place with an employee who says things like “#Ferguson one less n—– on #foodstamps.”

And it worked. The page gained nearly 40,000 followers in a matter of days, with 15,000 submissions in the first eight hours of the blog’s existence, according to its moderator.

Some employers even took notice and acting accordingly.

@TheFreedomSuite We are aware of the issue and the matter is currently under investigation.

— Food Lion (@FoodLion) November 30, 2014

However, where it didn’t work was in the case of Brianna Rivera. The cinema employee’s ex-boyfriend framed her by setting up a fake profile and posting racist comments under her name.

Thankfully her employers, AMC Theatre, investigated the matter and discovered the account was a hoax and filed a report with the police.

This resulted in new submission guidelines for Racists Getting Fired. But it wasn’t long before its sole female creator was required to moderate the massive volume of submissions and posted a request for more moderators.

But she also received some unwanted attention too – with death threats from 4Chan (who were behind the celebrity iCloud picture leaks) along with legal threats from those targeted.

Questions still remain over the value of the post – when many of those outed quickly repent and post apologies online almost immediately. Critics ask whether it is likely to send this kind of prejudice underground and out of public viewing rather than dealing with its cause.