WA Police criticised over racist Facebook comments, as Aboriginal leaders call for tighter moderation

Western Australia Police is facing renewed scrutiny over how it moderates its social media pages, after lawyers and Indigenous West Australians criticised the force for leaving racist comments online for days on posts involving Aboriginal people.

An ABC investigation found a recent WA Police Facebook post seeking information about the whereabouts of an Indigenous man attracted dozens of racist comments and remained public for four days before the post was removed after ABC inquiries. The broadcaster reported some comments relied on dehumanising stereotypes, including a joke comparing the man’s appearance to a gorilla, mocking references to alcoholism and “welcome to country” ceremonies.

Yawuru woman and concerned community member Mikka Poelina said she had been concerned about the comments on the page for several years, but had noticed a recent escalation in hate. “I’ve seen that they’ve left comments open, and it’s always open to racist comments,” she said. “They’re not doing enough.”

Ms Poelina said the comments had a significant impact, serving to further marginalise Indigenous people. “Before you had to go out on the street to find racism — now it can just come straight to your house through this media” she said. “It just keeps going with the stereotype that Aboriginal people are criminals and bad.”

Senior Perth lawyer Demi Swain said the comments breached platform community standards and promoted discrimination. She also raised concerns that a page operator with control over comments could face legal risk as a publisher, including potential liability in defamation matters. “These comments directly breach their terms of service community standards” Ms Swain said, describing them as “flat out discriminatory” and as content that “incited discrimination or hate”. She also called on social media platforms like Meta to play a larger role in monitoring comments.

WA Police defended keeping comments open, saying social media was an important tool for gathering information and speaking directly to the public. “The platforms encourage engagement among users, and this means that switching comments off limits the reach of posts in the community” a spokesperson said. The force said “auto-filters” and “manual screening” were used to remove inappropriate commentary, while declining to confirm whether dedicated moderators were in place.

After the story was published, WA Police director of corporate communications Joey Catanzaro issued a further statement, saying police’s priority was community safety. “But to put it bluntly, these posts and the assistance of the public can mean the difference between life or death for people in our WA community” Mr Catanzaro said. “Turning off the comments reduces our ability to stop crime, catch criminals, and find persons at risk.”

Broader questions about what moderation looks like for public agencies operating on private platforms. Monash University Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous) and Noongar man Professor Tristan Kennedy, who has conducted research into Indigenous people’s experiences of harmful content on social media, said leaving racist commentary unchallenged sends a troubling message. “If they’re happening on these platforms unmoderated, especially when there’s an opportunity to moderate, then it sends a message that these organisations feel like this is an acceptable narrative to be upholding” he said.

Professor Kennedy also called for genuine Indigenous leadership in how police respond to the issue, saying the effectiveness of police moderation of social media should be investigated. “I don’t think it’s good enough for the police to simply say the measures they have got in place are adequate without having genuine and meaningful Indigenous leadership,” he said. He noted that harmful content online could contribute to real-life harm, referencing community concern following the Invasion Day attack in Perth, which sparked a federal parliamentary inquiry into racism, hate and violence directed at Indigenous people.

WA Police’s approach appears to contradict its own published social media guidelines. WA government agency guidelines state that online dialogue should be moderated, including bullying, abuse, defamatory, abusive, harassing or hateful statements, and require agencies to assign moderators to review every comment and post on their channels.

Community advocates say the issue is not simply about reputational management, but about safety and trust — particularly where police rely on public cooperation while many Aboriginal people say confidence in policing remains fragile.