NRL clubs dealing with 'dangerous' rumours as season 2023 approaches
Clubs across the NRL are increasingly fed-up with inaccurate rumours and speculation sparked on social media.
Have you read the one about David Fifita? Apparently his management is in talks with the Panthers.
How about Cronulla flyer Sione Katoa? He's reportedly "in the final stages of negotiations" to join arch-rivals St George Illawarra.
Great stories both of them…if only they were true. NRL clubs are used to a hundred rumours circulating at any one time, but they are now dealing with a new social menace.
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Anonymous social media accounts are engaged in a form of 'catfishing' other anonymous social media accounts, contacting them with deliberately erroneous rumours in the hope the rumour is published. The thinking behind the ruse is to catch out the account holder willing to pass on the information without any checks and balances, but it’s a dangerous game with a potentially expensive and damaging edge to it.
While passing on gossip about player movements – whether they are right or wrong – won’t land you in hot water, anything a little more salacious could. Rumours or comments about a player's private life or an unsubstantiated off-field incident could have major legal ramifications.
"If you post or repost defamatory material then you're liable and it’s actionable," Wests Tiger chairman and head of Bryden Lawyers, Lee Hagipantelis, told Yahoo Sport Australia. "You can't hide behind the fact that it's a repost or that you're not the author of it. The minute you post something or repost it, you're responsible for it.
"I'm not sure these people realise that. I think social media and engagement in social media has reached such a level now where people think there's some element of immunity. There's not. Publication is far worse, potentially, than saying it to someone's face given the extent of the reach.
"Courts take a very dim view of it and the repercussions for posting defamatory material can be very, very significant."
NRL clubs take dim view of unfounded social media rumours
As for the clubs, they've pretty much given up trying to put out social media spot fires.
"It's more a hinderance than a real issue. You don't really get hammered by fans wanting to know more details unless it's from someone they think is in the know," one long-serving NRL media manager told us.
"It's more like you scratch your head wondering 'where did they come up with that shit?'
"It becomes more of an issue if it comes from someone with a lot of followers or from a reputable journo. Then the whole world thinks it's true and you think to yourself 'I better check that because it might have legs to it'.
"If it's coming from nobodies then you tend to laugh it off and not worry about it. There's not much you can do to control what is said on social media. It's the wild west."
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