WA Police Ask Meta for Help Moderating Racist Comments on Facebook

West Australian police have written to Meta to ask for moderation help after the force was criticised for allowing racist and derogatory comments to be posted on its Facebook pages.

Earlier this week a photo of two young people was posted on the Dunsborough Police Facebook page with a request for information.

The post drew a number of derogatory and homophobic comments before it was taken down hours later.

In April, lawyers and Indigenous leaders accused WA police of mishandling its comment sections after a series of racist comments were found to have been left under a number of posts.

Today WA Police Commissioner Col Blanch told 102.5 ABC Perth that he had written to Meta to ask for help, adding that social media companies had a responsibility to remove negative comments themselves.

"We've actually written to the social media companies saying we want to close comments after-hours so we prevent these abhorrent, disgusting comments," he said.

Commissioner Blanch said he was yet to hear whether Meta would still boost posts on the algorithm if comments were turned off.

"But I think that would be a good corporate citizen thing to do on behalf of policing agencies," he said.

Meta has been contacted for comment.

Digital-age policing

Retired police officer and e-safety expert Kristi McVee said it was up to the police to improve their social media moderation.

"Social media is such an easy medium to get an outcome and it has been very helpful in the past and that's why police use it," she said.

"But there has to be a little bit more consideration to what that could do for a young person … it could put them at risk."

Ms McVee said posts such as the one made by Dunsborough Police highlighted the perils of relying on social media to gather information from the public.

"From just looking at that image, it's obvious that these are young people, so they could have gone to their local high school," she said.

"But that takes man-hours."

Ms Mcvee worked closely with Meta during her time with WA Police and said she did not believe they would fix the problem.

"I don't think they really care, to be honest — they're not working for us, they're working for their advertisers and their machines," she said.

WA Police said it used a combination of filters and manual screening to remove inappropriate comments.

"The platforms encourage engagement among users, and this means that switching comments off negatively effects the reach of posts in the community," it said in a statement.

"While WA Police Force does, on occasion, switch comments off, this is not and won’t become standard practice."

Defamation risk

"Innocent dissemination" laws introduced in New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory in 2024 have lessened the defamation risk for publishers, but no such changes were enacted in WA.

University of Western Australia legal expert Marilyn Bromberg said state laws meant leaving comments on posts posed a risk for WA Police.

"If it's their social media page they can be held responsible for any comment that anyone makes," she said.

Beyond legal liability, the emotional toll of police social media posts can be high.

Commissioner for Children and Young People Jacqueline McGowan-Jones said police had some responsibility.

“We need to take care we don’t expose children and young people to abuse, and that includes abuse in the comments when posting their images online," she said.