Last Tuesday, July 7, 2026, Kinston Mayor Kareem Moore allegedly reshared explicit pornographic content on his official “Mayor Kareem Moore” Facebook page — and it stayed up for at least 9 minutes before concerned locals screenshot it and sent it over to The North Carolina Beat.
We’ve blurred the sensitive parts with an emoji, but there’s no mistaking what was posted on the mayor’s own page.
Mayor Moore Goes Radio Silent
Since Monday, July 13, The NC Beat has been reaching out to the mayor for answers. We asked, ‘Was this really a hack?’ ‘Did law enforcement or cybersecurity teams get involved?’ and ‘What steps, if any, have been taken to secure city communications?’
We have not heard a single word.
Part of our reaching out is because, instead of transparency, the page quickly tried to clean house. After the explicit post, the profile picture was deleted, followed by a post about the incident that appeared to be an apology.
“Apologies, the page was hacked and has been recovered!”
That apology post has since been deleted.
We followed up again on Thursday, July 16 with another direct email. Still zero response.
The mayor’s page currently sports a new profile picture dated July 8, 2026 — the very next day after the pornographic post.
So far, there has been zero official explanation from Mayor Moore or the City of Kinston about what really happened. Was the page truly hacked… or was the mayor caught on some “freaky-deaky time” and scrambling to cover it up?
Many residents say that if this had been former Mayor Don Hardy, it would be front-page news.
