ANDREW Demetriou says the AFL welcomes the use of social media but has warned clubs and players to be careful about what they project into the public realm.
Melbourne has been asked by the League this week to respond as to why a number of its players took to Twitter on Tuesday night to express their outrage when teammate Jack Trengove was suspended for three weeks by the tribunal for rough conduct.

Demetriou said the AFL encouraged its players to be accessible to the media but they needed to think before they tweeted in the areas of umpiring and excessive tribunal criticism. 

"We understand the use of Twitter has become more prevalent, more common, and it's now an accepted form of social media," he said on Friday.

"But it doesn't mean that unfair and unreasonable criticism should be tolerated because it's a new form of media.

"We encourage free speech. There's no issue with that. People have been commenting on tribunal decisions for a long time saying how disappointed they are, whether that's in print media, on television or on Twitter.

"But if it's unreasonable, we'll have an issue with it."

Demetriou used the example of Australian swimmer Stephanie Rice's Twitter faux pas in September last year where she directed an offensive word to South Africa's rugby union team after it was beaten by the Wallabies.

Rice was forced to front a press conference to apologise and explain her actions, which had angered many gay rights advocates.

He said players had to be mindful of what they used Twitter for, although topics such as the tribunal were largely off-limits for all forms of media. 

"Twitter in many ways provides a freedom to people, or they perceive it as a freedom, to say what they feel," he said.

"That's fine, but everyone's just got to be very careful and very conscious and in some instances, it might not be [advisable to comment].

"Whether it's Twitter or any other form of media, we've said there's no comment on umpires.

"I'm relating it to our rules. You can't comment on tribunal decisions if it is unreasonable or unfair criticism."

Demetriou said he didn't expect the Melbourne situation, which will be resolved on Friday, to encourage players to be more reserved when completing their media commitments.

He also said he supported the match review panel's findings, the tribunal's decision on Tuesday night and the outcome of Thursday night's appeal regarding the Trengove incident and his upheld three-week suspension. 

"[AFL football operations manager] Adrian Anderson and his team have educated all the clubs about the rule changes, that the head-high tackles are sacrosanct and the head and the neck will be protected," he said.

"He's a very, very fair player and he was unlucky, but the penalty is there from the match review panel and the tribunal, and he could have accepted the guilty plea and got two weeks.

"I daresay if he had got two there wouldn't be as much outrage compared to three but he chose to challenge it and that's his prerogative."

Demetriou dismissed suggestions the game had "gone soft", and earlier in the morning, disagreed with Hawthorn president Jeff Kennett's belief it was moving closer to a "contact-free game" on Melbourne radio station 3AW. 

"I wish people would just go down to the ground level and actually listen to a game instead of just watching it because the players are super athletes and the contact, the tackling, the bumping is alive and well," he said.

"It's a very tough and physical game that they're playing at the moment."

Demetriou confirmed behind the play incidents and their loading would be looked at very closely when the match review panel and tribunal system was reviewed at the end of the year.