The Queensland human rights commissioner, Scott McDougall, says police must closely monitor vigilante activity, amid concern about the role of anti-crime Facebook groups where residents have threatened children or called for violent responses to youth crime.
Debate about youth crime in Queensland last week prompted the state government to override its Human Rights Act to introduce new laws, which will result in children being charged with criminal offences for breaching bail conditions. Experts say there is no evidence to support such a move.
The state says it is responding to “community expectations”. At the same time there is growing concern that Facebook anti-crime groups – including some that have morphed into influential lobby groups – have skewed community sentiment, normalised racism and excused calls for violence and retribution.
Guardian Australia has seen posts on community crime Facebook pages calling for vigilante responses, including multiple calls to “run over” Indigenous teenagers.
Earlier this month, the Guardian reported that children living in a Queensland residential care home were the subject of death threats on social media – including calls for neighbours to “storm the house” and “hang whoever is inside” – after media reports incorrectly claimed the premises was a halfway house for young criminals.
Police have repeatedly warned publicly against vigilantism, but there are growing concerns that recent heightened debate in Queensland, and a series of high-profile incidents, might increase that risk.
A court has heard that in 2021, alleged Townsville vigilante Christopher Michael Hughes was chasing a car when he lost control, became airborne and struck a motorbike, killing the rider, Jennifer Board.
The killing of Noongar-Yamatji schoolboy Cassius Turvey in Western Australia led to heightened concerns about the attacks by vigilantes whose hostility is fuelled by racist comments on social media.
McDougall said the Human Rights Commission occasionally referred incidents of alleged criminal activity to police and “recent tragic events interstate demonstrate the need for police to closely monitor vigilante activity”.
“While there are government plans to amend the criminal code to enable police to respond to these sorts of criminal incitements more easily, the existing criminal provision in the Anti-Discrimination Act does allow police to bring charges against a person who incites hatred by threatening harm to a person or group of people.”
Guardian Australia asked police several questions about their response to incitement of violence, including whether they had taken action against posters making overt threats for incitement on social media.
“The QPS actively monitors social media platforms for criminal behaviour and investigates matters as necessary,” they said in a statement.
“The QPS has a strong working relationship with various social media platforms, having hosted forums with representatives from major companies and eSafety attending and reaffirming their commitment to addressing these issues.
“There have been numerous cases where social media platforms have removed content or accounts at our request, where users have promoted, incited or instructed in matters of crime or violence.”
Police said they had also worked with social media companies to remove content “depicting criminal behaviour” including “bragging” posts by young people.
Guardian Australia asked Facebook’s parent company, Meta, about vigilante, violent and racist posts in community anti-crime groups, including comments about a desire to “run over” Indigenous teenagers and describing them as “road kill”.
Meta said it had “strict rules which outline what is and isn’t allowed on Facebook and Instagram”.
“Hate speech and incitement to violence are against these rules and we invest heavily in teams and technology to help us find and remove this content. We investigated and removed most of the posts that were shared for violating our policies.”
