Tongan woman Esitia Tupou moderates a Facebook page for Polynesians in Brisbane where they expose men they claim cheat on girlfriends, wives, and families.
"We wanted to look out for our Poly sisters, those that have been hurt or were worried if their man was cheating," she said.
Ms Tupou said the page had revealed many women were "played by the same guy" or "hurt by a person they thought was the perfect match, or the loyal partner".
"Do we have the same boyfriend" Facebook pages have sprung up across the Asia-Pacific, with Sydney's boasting 20,000 members, Auckland's 16,000 and 13,000 in the Melbourne version.
Ms Tupou said she wasn't expecting the page she moderates — the biggest of several of its kind focusing on the Pasifika diaspora community in Australia — to "blow up" in the way it did.
In under a fortnight, the group has grown to more than 7,000 members.
On the Brisbane-focused page, hundreds of posts identify men by their name and photo and ask members for "the tea", or gossip, about them.
Some posts allege physical or emotional abuse, as well as issues around a lack of consent.
"Sometimes the guy that they're talking to is being catfished," Ms Tupou said.
"Some other random [guy] is using [their] photos to talk, but it's not them."
Other posts were just "really sad to hear", she said.
"Girls were posting, 'I have faith in him but I'm scared so I'm wondering if anyone is talking to him,' and a bunch of girls [replied] saying, 'Oh girl, you better run.'
"We wanted them to find out the truth, basically."
Ms Tupou and fellow moderators decided to let some men into the group to offer them right of reply to allegations, but she said this "quickly backfired".
Some of the men began "threatening [that] if they bring up [the man's] past … they'll get smashed" — posts she said were promptly removed.
Meanwhile, "girl cousins" were also wreaking havoc on the page, as they dominated comment sections in a bid to defend their named family members.
"And so obviously, they're going to be arguing in the comments saying, 'Oh, he's like not that anymore,'" she said.
Some men who have featured on the pages have taken to responding on social media app TikTok.
In a video, a man who said he had been featured on one of the Facebook pages asked that those making the claims "stop playing".
He said the same women were also "in my DMs", suggesting they were simultaneously seeking his attention by messaging him.
None of the men featured on the Facebook page for Polynesians in Brisbane who were contacted by the ABC responded to requests for an interview.
Strong influence from family
Fijian social worker and academic Jioji Ravulo attributes the Polynesian page's popularity to the idea Pacific people are "relationally and communally driven".
Professor Ravulo is chair of social work and policy studies at the University of Sydney and also a counsellor who works with a "mixed bag" of couples, including Pacific Islanders.
He said he often asked Pacific couples to consider "the bigger picture about where they fit in as an individual in their family" as well as the ways family influenced them and their relationship.
"It is an opportunity for us to talk and call out these particular behaviours, but it's also an opportunity for us to look at solutions and possible opportunities," he said.
He said the best way forward with Pacific couples was to focus on communication and managing expectations.
"Our families are inextricably connected to our own individual identities," he said.
"It's creating scope for those expectations to be communicated and understood … to provide scope for people to create a safe and sustainable relationship.
Survey finds app users facing sexual violence
A survey from the Australian Institute of Criminology last year found three in four respondents in the past five years had experienced a form of sexual violence by a person they had met on a matchmaking service.
Jacqueline Drew, from Griffith University's Criminology Institute, said women's mistrust of dating apps and authorities who they felt had failed to protect them from harm was the impetus for the creation of these groups.
Last month, industry and government came together for a roundtable discussion on improving transparency, information sharing and reporting mechanisms, threatening the apps with a mandatory code of conduct if they did not clean up their platforms.
"It's difficult to regulate the online space … but it's a major step forward that we've had this roundtable and all the parties are willing to come together," Dr Drew said.
While social media has been promoted as a way to warn the community about fraud and online scams, Dr Drew said doing the same for former partners was a "dangerous approach" that could lead to defamation action as well as an escalation in violence.
"By creating these sites, there's really no right of reply, and [they] certainly could be the impetus for a defamation claim because they're making some serious criminal accusations against these individuals," she said.
"If the person they're posting about has a violent history, that is going to [increase] the dangers potentially experienced by these women."
So, what's the solution?
Dr Drew said many women did not report poor behaviour through channels like the apps or police because they thought the information "goes into a black hole".
However, she said it was the best way women could protect themselves.
"Dating platforms can only look at the people that are using their platforms if they have information given to them," she said.
By the same token, she said dating platforms and authorities needed to "take these issues seriously" by acting on the information they received.
"They have to ensure that those reporting mechanisms are available, they're easy to use, [and they] take the information seriously and investigate it," Dr Drew said.
"That's how we can remove people that have bad intent on these platforms, remove them from having the facility to meet further victims."
In a statement to the ABC, a spokesperson for the eSafety Commissioner said they had "received a number of reports about social media groups sharing allegations of infidelity against males and females".
"In some cases, these reports are linked to other complaints about the sharing of intimate images without consent," it said.
"Where other material breaches the platform's terms of service it may also be removed by the platform."
The statement said it was not the commission's role to assess reputational harm, or take action against defamatory attacks or criminal misconduct, but could "provide information and guidance to ensure the person targeted is supported and aware of other [legal] options".
