Facebook takes action against trolls. Picture: ThinkStock Source: news.com.au
FACEBOOK has bowed to the complaints of hundreds of parents and removed vile comments and stolen photographs which had been plastered across Australian social media sites this week by a pair of American internet "trolls".
The disgusting actions of the pair - who posted pictures of dead babies on parenting websites and uploaded stolen baby photos with sexual comments attached - have prompted a warning from parents to hide their online baby photos.
Hundreds of Facebook pages, including many in Victoria, were defaced by the pair before Facebook took action.
Parents who had pictures of their children saved as their profile photo were horrified to discover the images had been copied and pasted on to other sites, along with vile, sexual tags. The offending photos and accounts, were deleted a week after they were first posted.
But parents fear the trolls will only change their Facebook profile and continue to post the traumatic photos elsewhere.
Trolls are internet users who post inflammatory messages and pictures online to intentionally upset others.
Melbourne mother-of-two Linda Bradfield, who runs the Facebook page Nifty Mums Network, wants Facebook to publicly reveal the IP address - a number assigned to every computer hooked up to the internet - to better track the trolls.
"As soon as they get deleted, they just assume another profile," Ms Bradfield said. "Surely there's got to be a way of tracking IP numbers so somebody can't make another profile."
She said parents needed to ensure their Facebook security settings were high and should never post photos of their children that can be seen publicly.
"You can have your security levels set at maximum, so only your friends can view your pictures, but if you've got your profile picture of your child, all it takes is for someone to right click on the picture, save it and they can do whatever they want with it," she said.
"They don't actually need to get into your account."
An AFP spokesman said the force had successfully "liaised" with Facebook to ensure the images were deleted. The spokesman said the monitoring and censorship of information was primarily the responsibility of Facebook, and inappropriate content should be reported to the Facebook Help Centre. Facebook did not respond before deadline.
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