NSW Police is being urged to withdraw its complaint against a Facebook page set up to support past and present officers struggling with mental illness.
The Forgotten 300 bills itself as “a support website” for current and former officers who have been hurt on duty or victims of suicide and their families.
Its associated Facebook group, which had more than 54,000 followers, was taken down in mid-March after NSW Police complained to Facebook that some of its content constituted bullying.
The site administrator, Berrick Boland, a former officer, told Guardian Australia he had received no contact from Facebook or NSW Police over the page’s removal.
He believed the complaint had to do with up to three posts he made to the page the night before it was removed that publicly identified one senior officer as having a poor track record of responding to mental ill health.
“It’s just a matter of police media flexing their muscle over Facebook,” he said. “Who are they to say we were bullying? They were truthful comments and we stand by them.”
NSW Police confirmed that it had complained to Facebook over “highly offensive” content that was “detrimental to the wellbeing of particular serving officers”.
A NSW Police spokesman said the force recognised the “important role” of support pages on social media. “However posts which bully, intimidate or harass are clearly counter-productive to the network’s original purpose and will be reported.”
A Facebook spokesman told Guardian Australia that all reported content found to violate its community standards is removed.
“Our community standards explain that people are able to speak freely and critically on matters of public interest but we will remove content that appears to purposefully target private individuals with the intention of degrading or shaming them,” it said.
A Change.org petition calling for the the site’s reinstatement had more than 800 supporters by Friday morning, while a new Facebook page, The Forgotten 000s, has been set up in its place. On Friday afternoon it had more than 7,300 followers.
“Do not let the bullies win,” was one comment made on Thursday.
Boland told AAP that members of the original page were anxious that personal tributes to former officers might have been lost.
“We’ve got all these members and wives, spouses, families, kids who’ve lost their fathers to suicide – they all come on here and put tributes up,” he said.
“We just lost the lot. We want that reinstated.”
Boland said the matter raised questions about how authorities dealt with mental illness among current and former staff.
“This is how the police force has dealt with suicides,” he said. “They just shut the problem down and sweep it under the carpet rather than dealing with it.”
