Thousands of women are turning to social media to share details of their allegedly abusive former lovers, amid concerns authorities and dating apps are failing to protect them from dangerous men.
But lawyers warn these posts could expose them to expensive and draining legal action.
Alizé Hope, the founder of one Facebook group with nearly 20,000 women-only members, said women wanted to feel safe.
Ms Hope's group receives hundreds of daily posts identifying men by name and photo with allegations of abuse for the purpose to warn future partners.
"Dating online shouldn't be that dangerous, but that's the reality of the situation," Ms Hope said.
Safety concerns reached new heights after the death of Dannielle Finlay-Jones in December, when she was allegedly murdered after meeting a man on an online dating app.
"I want women to spread awareness of these men who think they can get away with stuff like this because it's not right," Ms Hope said.
She said members reported the group had helped them to rule out online matches with people who had histories of dangerous, violent or manipulative behaviour.
She said dating apps needed to improve user safety and until then "my page will be there to support women".
Grassroots 'self-help'
A survey from the Australian Institute of Criminology found that three in four people in the past five years had experienced a form of sexual violence by a person they had met on a matchmaking service.
To tackle the issue, a national roundtable meeting last month with stakeholders, including dating app companies, considered whether the app users should disclose their criminal background.
But any changes will likely be months or years away, with the federal government stressing they will need to balance concerns about privacy and data collection.
Criminologist and domestic violence researcher Professor Kerry Carrington said in the meantime women were increasingly taking online dating safety measures into their own hands.
"A major predictor of domestic family violence is if a man has a history, then he's likely to repeat that history," Professor Carrington said.
"And it's very difficult to get this kind of information."
She said sharing reviews of dangerous or abusive encounters on social media was a grassroots "self-help" initiative that was gaining momentum with women across the country.
"This is a real issue when you have a third of all homicides in Australia domestic family violence-related," she said.
"There's very little legitimacy or trust in the police or formal authorities that they can help, there's a lot of disappointment with the formal justice system.
"So these are the sorts of things that crop up spontaneously at a local level."
'Absolutely' a defamation risk
Lawyer Sophie Robertson SC said posting anything derogatory on social media, even in private groups, "absolutely" created a defamation risk.
"If it makes the ordinary reasonable person looking at it think less of the person it's about … they could quite easily commence proceedings for defamation," Ms Robertson said.
"[And that applies] to any publication that's able to be accessed, by even just one other person."
She said while the post may be justified by being "true," defending a defamation claim could be emotionally and financially draining.
"People may not understand that before they click 'post' – what is the consequence of that?" she said.
"I would not wish a defamation claim on anyone."
Like 'Google reviews of men'
But it's a risk thousands of women are deciding to take, as more pages crop up in regional areas where dating pools are smaller.
Sarah Ann* created a private group in Townsville in North Queensland to "filter out the bad seeds".
"I know they're not all bad. It just really sucks when you keep finding the bad ones," she said.
In just over a month, more than 2,500 women-only members have joined the group.
Sarah Ann said the page revealed men with dangerous patterns when some members discovered they had been victims of abuse, manipulation, or violence by the same person.
"People [men] are just using the apps to go from one person to the next … but [now] they get caught," she said.
"If he's got that many women on this page saying that he's no good, [you] stay away from him.
"You get a Google review of restaurants, you should have Google reviews of men."
Right to know
Requests for another person's criminal or domestic violence history for the purpose of making decisions about safety or the future of a relationship are not permitted in any state or territory except South Australia.
Police in South Australia allow people at risk of domestic violence, and people concerned about the welfare of someone they know, to apply for access to information about their partner or former partner.
The New South Wales government has also pledged to extend its right-to-know scheme if it wins next month's election.
The legislation, introduced last month, would allow a search to determine if a person has a domestic violence history.
Professor Carrington said it was a "first step".
"Sometimes it's never reported and it's never recorded, so that's going to be a big barrier [to getting accurate information]," she said.
NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet has expressed his support for rules that would stop people with apprehended violence orders (AVOs) from joining dating apps but said a national rollout would be more effective.
*Sarah Ann's last name has been withheld for privacy reasons.
