Reporting minor property crimes on Facebook community social media pages can make residents feel like their neighborhood is less safe, even when statistics show the actual crime rate is low.
Key Points:
- The police need crimes to be reported at the same time they are posted on social media
- Facebook community groups act as watchdogs, lawyer says
- Facebook group administrators could be liable for costly defamation claims
University of Queensland researcher Renee Zahnow says very safe places are being unfairly stigmatised.
“The chatter on these pages can create the impression of criminal or deviant behavior that are really reports of minor incidents,” Dr. Zahnow said.
“Social norms and definitions of crime or disorder begin to be constructed online,” he said.
Community Facebook groups are a popular source of local information in Australia. (Reuters: Dado Ruvic)
The latest crime figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics show an overall decrease of 3% in robbery victims across the country.
But the incidence of property crimes, including motor vehicle thefts, rose nationally by 3%.
Report to the police
Gold Coast Police Superintendent Geoff Sheldon doesn’t discourage people from posting crime reports on social media pages, but would prefer people tell police about incidents at the same time they post.
“We thrive on our relationship with the public and their ability to contact us and give us the information we need to help keep them safe,” he said.
Geoff Sheldon says police need people to report crimes at the same time they post on community social media pages. (ABC Gold Coast: Heidi Sheehan)
“We used to wait for him to call us, then two of us would get in the car and drive to get a report and write it in a notebook,” he said.
“Now we have online reporting, you can use the police link and report matters over the phone only.”
Virtual surveillance
Community social media groups must be policed to stop a rise in online vigilantism, according to prominent Australian criminal lawyer Bill Potts.
Bill Potts says social media groups work like the “wild west”. (ABC News: Steve Keen)
Potts says some pages resemble the Wild West without a sheriff because of the number of unfounded allegations of criminal activity.
“What we’re seeing is something very, very dangerous. I’m concerned that there’s going to be violence,” Potts said.
“It encourages people to violence under the guise of identifying criminals. The simple truth is that we cannot clearly identify or know the basis of the people who are saying these things; they may be doing so maliciously.”
Risk of defamation
According to Joanne Stagg, a professor at Griffith University Law School, people who post unsubstantiated allegations on social media pages risk facing significant fines under defamation laws.
“A lot of people are opening themselves up to a very real risk of liability and that can run into the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars,” Ms Stagg said.
“If the person they post images of isn’t committing a crime or hasn’t committed crimes, that would be a very strong case of defamation.”
The High Court ruling in the defamation case involving Dylan Voller had significant ramifications for the media in Australia. (ABC News: Steven Schubert)
In the case of Dylan Voller in September 2021, the High Court ruled that media organizations could be held liable if the public made defamatory comments on their Facebook posts.
Brett Walker of the Australian National University, an expert in communications law, said at the time that the decision had even wider consequences.
“Any organization that runs a social media account could also be liable for defamation on the same basis, for example businesses, sports clubs and community groups,” he said.
Ms Stagg says the decision means teenagers effectively become editors at 13 on social media.
“I think high school education is a great idea,” he said.
“These people are starting a new social media site or maybe they think they can be the next big thing on TikTok, but unfortunately they could be exposing themselves to a lot of liability.”