Top cop Col Blanch warns that ‘despicable’ cyber abuse is hard to catch after Perth activists targeted online

The State’s top cop has described a campaign of cyber abuse directed at two Perth activists as “despicable”. Caitlin Roper and Lyn Kennedy have been subjected to death threats, deep fake pornography, and graphic attacks online, after being part of a successful campaign against ‘rape simulation’ games online. “This is a real challenge for law enforcement across the world, because gone are the days where crime is confined to a State or even to the country,” Police Commissioner Col Blanch said, on Monday. “Even the gaming community communicate across the globe, and threats and disgusting, despicable behaviour, like in this instance, can come from any side of the world, anonymously. “Tracking down those responsible can be near impossible.” Police launched an internal investigation and met with Ms Roper last week, after The West Australian revealed she was initially turned away from Joondalup police station and told to call the Australian Cyber Security Hotline. The hotline referred her back to police. “There is no protection, there is no one to keep you safe and there’s nothing to stop this,” Ms Roper said. Mr Blanch said the scale of cyber abuse is a challenge, but vowed it is taken seriously. “The scale is huge. But that doesn’t mean that we don’t take a report and we send it to the appropriate authorities and we do what we can,” he said. “But I think the expectations need to be known when you are dealing with such a gigantic platform of anonymised identities, it is very difficult to track down those responsible.” He said it’s up to the Commonwealth to hold social media giants to account for allowing abuse to be spread, and to identify perpetrators. “We do have to reach out to the Commonwealth capabilities to at least help us identify where these are coming from and utilize their skills in blocking those people from accessing victims here in Western Australia,” Mr Blanch said. “If we’re having victims in our State who are subjected to this despicable, disgusting language, maybe something needs to be done.” A review of Australia’s Online Safety Act made 67 recommendations in February, including multi-million dollar penalties for online platforms. 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 platforms to prevent harm. A State Government spokesperson said Police Minister Reece Whitby will raise the issue at a meeting of Police Ministers in Canberra next month.