A vile, co-ordinated campaign of online abuse including deep fake porn, and threats to kill and rape, has left two Perth women terrified — and authorities are powerless to stop it.
Perth’s Caitlin Roper and Lyn Kennedy have been doxxed and subjected to a tirade of online abuse after an activist group they are part of, Collective Shout, ran a successful campaign against graphic online games, that included rape simulations.
The threatening messages included: “you f…ed with gamers, now we are going to rape you” and “my bat gonna fit nicely in your skull”.
“I’ll cut off your heads and f… your corpses,” said another, with a doctored image showing a gun pointed at Ms Roper’s face.
Other messages included deep fake porn, photo depictions of her head blowing up or in a noose, and knives.
A mass email campaign by Collective Shout had demanded Mastercard, Visa and PayPal block payments for games that breach Australian classification standards, and within weeks gaming platforms Steam and Ich.io started deleting them.
More than 20,000 games were removed, pending review.
Then some gamers vowed to fight back.
“We are now entering week number nine,” Collective Shout founder Melinda Tankard Reist said.
“We’ve had abuse and backlash before, but the scale of this is not comparable.”
Ms Roper phoned police for help, was told it was “very serious” and to attend Joondalup police station, but claims the officer there refused to file a complaint.
Instead she was handed a cyber safety pamphlet that directed her to call the Australian Cyber Security Hotline.
“He did not look at the evidence, he did not open a case file,” she said.
My information is out there, published by this angry mob, and it doesn’t matter. I’m in fear for my life . . . I just wanted to know someone gives a shit, but no one’s going to help. There is no protection.
The Australian Cyber Security Hotline referred her back to WA Police.
Police launched an internal investigation, and met with Ms Roper this week, after queries by The West Australian.
“No one should have to deal with serious online abuse or exposure to illegal and restricted online content on their own,” a WA Police spokesman said.
“WA Police will conduct an internal investigation into this matter. The investigation will also attempt to identify the currently anonymous person responsible for the online content.”
An interstate colleague was told by Victoria Police that an “investigation would be of limited value” because the social media websites are “not in our jurisdiction” and not obliged to assist.
“Not to have the backing of anybody who has powers to help or is meant to protect you is especially disheartening,” Ms Kennedy said.
The group was advised to seek help from Australia’s e-Safety Commissioner, who issued take-down notices for some posts but couldn’t act on most, under current laws.
“Only about six per cent of reports to e-Safety’s Adult Cyber Abuse scheme meet that high legislated threshold,” an e-Safety spokesman confirmed.
“To that end, threats of violence, including threats to rape or kill, should always be reported to local police.”
The response has been blasted by Labor MP Kate Doust, in State Parliament.
“How do we find these toxic, appalling individuals who create this content? They are hidden. They are anonymous. They are protected behind their screens,” she said.
Her call for new co-ordinated efforts to “deal with keyboard warriors” received bi-partisan support and a promise by Police Minister Reece Whitby to raise cyber abuse at a national level.
“It’s extraordinary, the threats that these individuals are using considering what’s at stake here,” senior Liberal Nick Goiran said.
The risk assessment from WA Police was frank.
“Unfortunately, crime committed via technology and online is a complex issue,” a Police spokesman said.
“The general advice to victims of online abuse is to immediately report incidents to the relevant platform who is responsible for maintaining their respective codes of conduct for their users.”
Meta disabled five accounts on Instagram and one account on Facebook, but said it wasn’t able to act on most of Collective Shout’s complaints due to “privacy jurisdictions”.
Billionaire Elon Musk’s X locked Ms Roper’s account but said the account that sent her graphic messages “hasn’t broken our safety policies”.
In a statement, X insisted “abuse, harassment and hateful conduct” have no place on the platform, but wouldn’t comment on specific cases.
“We continue to dedicate more and more resources to combating hatred, prejudice and intolerance,” an X spokeswoman said.
Ms Tankard Reist isn’t able to guarantee her staff’s safety, though she refuses to give into that thought.
“I don’t want to live that way. Everyone knows the risks and everyone’s prepared to take them,” she said.
“But it would only take one . . . some of these men want to be martyrs.”
A review of Australia’s Online Safety Act made 67 recommendations in February.
The Federal Government is yet to release its full response but has committed to legislate a digital duty of care to increase the onus on online platforms to prevent harm.
Ms Tankard Reist has warned it won’t work without tougher penalties and that, in the meantime, women are being silenced by fear.
“We need serious penalties for the big tech bros that allow this and profit from it,” she said.
“They have whole budgets to swat away complaints.
“Not everything deserves free speech protection, Elon. Some of us get hurt and harmed.”
https://thewest.com.au/politics/state-politics/perth-women-the-target-of-tsunami-of-cyber-abuse-that-authorities-are-powerless-to-stop–c-19947363
