Ghoulish Facebook vandals mock Australian laws

The Facebook tribute pages of the Melbourne teenager who died yesterday after being punched in the head and the family who were killed in South Australia have been defaced with vulgar messages and sickening photographs.

It's the latest in a series of incidents of vandalism of tribute pages of people who have died around the world.

An organised online group appears to be co-ordinating attacks on tribute pages, with police and other authorities doing little to stop it.

Facebook, which has been consistently criticised for failing to stamp out the practice and act quickly enough to remove the offensive messages, did not respond to a request for comment.

Calls have been placed with the local PR firm and Facebook's spokesmen in the US.

Cameron Lowe, 17, wrote a series of haunting messages on the social networking site following a confrontation with a group of youths who punched him in the head. He died in The Alfred hospital yesterday after he was found in his bed not breathing.

A "R.I.P Cameron Lowe" Facebook tribute page set up for his family and friends to offer condolences has been defaced with gruesome and pornographic photos.

Some of the images were posted by a group of internet "trolls" who also wrote highly offensive and inappropriate messages on the tribute page wall.

The group, whom we have chosen not to name to defeat their quest for notoriety, seeks to harass grieving families by defacing tribute pages.

They gather on an online forum, seen by this website, where they discuss targets and laugh about their work.

The group have posted a video on YouTube that glorifies their vandalism and shows how they deface the pages.

Also defaced was a tribute page to Chantelle Rowe, 16, who was found dead with her parents in their Adelaide home yesterday.

Inappropriate messages and doctored photographs were posted to several tribute pages for Chantelle and her family, who police believe were killed in a triple murder.

A cousin, Steven Rowe, wrote about the material on Facebook: "He even sent this shit to my inbox ... thats my cousin and i honestly hope some [sic] kicks your head in!"

But the user responsible for the messages replied: "I won't go to jail ... i'm not in Australia, therefore I cannot break the Australian law".

Victoria Police and South Australia Police both refused to comment, arguing no offence had been committed.

However, Jesssica Chantelle Cook, 22, from Queensland, received a three-month suspended jail sentence inAugust for posting offensive material on a Facebook tribute page for murdered Sunshine Coast woman Justine Jones.

Cook had pleaded guilty in the Gympie Magistrates Court to one count of using a carriage service to menace, harass or cause offence.

Earlier this year, former prime minister Kevin Rudd said he was considering appointing an online ombudsman to deal with social networking issues after Facebook tribute pages for several slain Australian children were vandalised.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh wrote to Facebook demanding to know what action it intended to take to prevent a recurrence of these "sickening incidents".

In response to the outcry, Facebook sent out an alert to all Australian members informing them how they could lock down Facebook pages and prevent vandalism. However, this evidently had little impact.

Source: stuff.co.nz

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