AFL QUEENSLAND SOCIAL NETWORKING SITE POLICY
AFL Queensland is concerned about the increasing number of complaints being made about the unacceptable use of Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and other social networking sites by people involved as players or officials with AFL Queensland.
There are examples where the sites have been used to bully footballers, to criticise umpires and to make racist or sexist remarks about other participants. This type of behaviour is totally unacceptable in Australian Football and will not be tolerated.
Many of the remarks are being made by the posters believing that, because those remarks can only be seen by people they have accepted as friends on their pages, they will not be made public. Fortunately, there are enough decent people around who bring this type of behaviour to the attention of AFL clubs, AFL Leagues and AFL Queensland. This occurs even when the posts are made by friends because those people recognise the harm and distress this type of behaviour can generate.
Under AFL Queensland’s, Reports and Tribunals regulations, behaviour which is unacceptable can be brought to a Tribunal even if the behaviour did not occur on the field. As long as an incident is Australian Football related, the Tribunal can deal with it.
AFL Queensland will have no hesitation in referring to the Tribunal the misuse of social networking sites, if the misuse relates to Australian Football that is under the jurisdiction of AFL Queensland.
Last Modified on 07/11/2012 16:12