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Facebook has defended its "reporting tools" after ex-rugby league player Mark Geyer took aim at the "NRL Memes" page, which falsely suggested his daughter had been caught up in the NRL's latest sex tapes scandal.
Key points:
- The NRL has had a horror off-season with the publication on social media of old sex tapes involving players
- Following complaints, Facebook has removed the controversial NRL Memes page which has published some tapes
- Facebook says its "reporting tools" are adequate and that it uses automation to identify harmful content quickly
Geyer, a former Penrith player and media identity, has threatened legal action against the page after it suggested his daughter, Montanna, was one of two women featured in the Tyrone May sex tapes.
"It's all bullshit — it's not my daughter," Geyer told News Corp.
A Facebook spokeswoman said the page was subsequently removed for violating the company's "community standards".
Facebook Australia's public policy director Mia Garlick labelled the situation "tragic".
"We have reporting tools built in around the site to try to ensure that people can let us know if that type of content is on our service," she said in Sydney.
"We invest in a significant reporting infrastructure to try and ensure we can remove that content as soon as we are aware of it."
Facebook removes content that violates someone's privacy, sexual content such as revenge porn and images that are shared without someone's consent.
"We are increasingly using automation to try to help us better and more quickly and proactively identify harmful content even before it is reported to us," Ms Garlick said when quizzed about the time it took to remove the NRL Memes post.
The social media giant is currently piloting a program to stop non-consensual images from being shared in the first place.
Victims can provide a photo to Facebook, which then creates an "image fingerprint" that blocks the intimate image from being shared.
"This is certainly something that we take incredibly seriously and that we are investing significantly in," Ms Garlick said.
Earlier this year NRL Memes posted a leaked explicit video of new Roosters player Dylan Napa taken several years ago.
This week the NRL sanctioned the former Bulldog, fining Napa 10 per cent of his salary, under new stricter penalties for players' off-field misdemeanours.
The issue burst to life again over the publication of a series of videos involving Penrith Panthers players.
Penrith five-eighth May was charged under revenge porn laws and stood down by the NRL on Tuesday after turning himself into police.
He was charged with two counts of recording an intimate image without consent and two counts of disseminating an image without consent.
The women in the separate videos were unaware they were being filmed and did not consent to the recording or its distribution, detectives allege.
Under NSW's revenge porn laws, offenders face up to three years in jail and an $11,000 fine.
May has been granted bail to face Penrith Local Court on May 1.
AAP/ABC
Topics: sport, rugby-league, nrl, internet-culture, social-media, australia