{"id":405109,"date":"2026-04-30T14:34:10","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:34:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/405109\/"},"modified":"2026-04-30T14:34:10","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T14:34:10","slug":"nrl-crackdown-on-disturbing-social-media-trend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/405109\/","title":{"rendered":"NRL crackdown on disturbing social media trend"},"content":{"rendered":"

The NRL<\/a> has vowed to stamp out a wave of disturbing, AI-generated misinformation sweeping across rugby league and AFL<\/a> communities, as fake news accounts continue to target players, clubs and fans online.<\/p>\n

In recent months, numerous Facebook pages posing as official club channels or fan hubs have been producing fabricated stories using artificial intelligence tools.<\/p>\n

The posts, often dressed up to look real, have spread rapidly, garnering thousands of likes, shares and comments, and reaching tens of thousands of users.<\/p>\n

The content itself has crossed from misleading into deeply harmful.<\/p>\n

False reports have circulated claiming former stars such as Jonathan Thurston are battling serious illness, invented discriminatory stadium policies, and multiple accounts have created fake news regarding player deaths.<\/p>\n

The scale and nature of the content have prompted urgent action from the NRL<\/a>, which is now working directly with Meta to remove the accounts behind the trend.<\/p>\n

“The NRL<\/a> is aware of several fake accounts impersonating NRL<\/a> clubs and sharing false, harmful content, including fabricated news,” an NRL<\/a> spokesman told The Australian.<\/p>\n

“The NRL<\/a> has reported these accounts and offending posts to Meta. We have been and will continue to work closely with Meta to have them removed.”<\/p>\n

Clubs have also begun taking matters into their own hands.<\/p>\n

The North Queensland Cowboys<\/a> are among the first to successfully act, securing the removal of a Facebook page titled ‘Cowboys Fan Hub’ after it was found to be spreading AI-generated misinformation\u2014particularly targeting the club’s cheerleaders.<\/p>\n

Meta confirmed the takedown, reinforcing its stance against coordinated inauthentic behaviour.<\/p>\n

“We removed this Page and the associated ads for violating our inauthentic behaviour policies. We’ll continue to monitor and take action if we find further violations,” a Meta spokeswoman said in a statement to The Australian.<\/p>\n

Despite these early wins, the issue remains widespread, with new accounts continuing to emerge and exploit the viral nature of social media. The ease of creating AI-generated content\u2014combined with the speed at which it can be shared\u2014has made it increasingly difficult to control.<\/p>\n

With both the NRL<\/a> and AFL<\/a> seasons underway, officials are now warning fans to remain vigilant about the content they consume and share online, as the league intensifies its crackdown on what it has labelled a dangerous and “harmful” trend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NRL has vowed to stamp out a wave of disturbing, AI-generated misinformation sweeping across rugby league and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":405110,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[111,139,69,213],"class_list":["post-405109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405109","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=405109"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/405109\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/405110"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=405109"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=405109"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=405109"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}