In 2017, Knox Grammar mothers sued each other for defamation over WeChat comments. "Whether you're making money doesn’t really matter," he says. Even unpaid administrators can be liable, Dr Bosland says. The courts may consider profit motive when weighing up if an administrator is a publisher, but it's not a decisive test. So what about volunteer administrators like Chris Berkeley, who say they aren't making a "brass razoo" out of their work? "If you're an intermittent poster and you check six months later and someone has left defamatory comments on your post, it's going to be difficult to draw the conclusion you're in fact a publisher of that." "If you're the administrator of a neighbourhood groups that's very active, you might be publishers of third-party comments," he says. He expects courts will distinguish between posters and groups that are very active, and those that are not. The key question that courts will be asking, says David Rolph, a defamation law expert at the University of Sydney, is "whether you've been said to have encouraged or invited third-party comments". The person who posts the content that then gets defamatory comments could be liable. In fact, the ruling extends not only to administrators of community groups, but to the ordinary members in those groups too. "Theres nothing in the judgement to suggest it wouldn't extend to a person who owns a Facebook page." That case focuses on media outlets, but the ruling may extend to administrators of community groups, Dr Bosland says. The High Court indicated anyone who invites or encourages third-party comments on any social media platform would be seen as the publisher of those comments. So what is the liability of administrators for third-party comments? "I think this ruling can't stand long-term." Working out liability is 'uncharted territory' "Whether that's small groups of something like a newspaper's Facebook page, it really goes against the functioning of social media." "These groups are set up to enable people to communicate with each other "The public expects to be able to comment and contribute to civic engagement, and to shut that down is really problematic," he says. Jason Bosland, director of the Centre for Media and Communications Law at Melbourne University, is also worried by the effect of the High Court decision on community groups and "civic engagement". Moderating large Facebook pages was stressful enough without the new legal risk. Over the past week, at least eight MPs have disabled comments, including the Tasmanian Premier and the ACT Chief Minister. In other words, they're the kind of cases you would expect to arise from arguments that take place on a community Facebook group.įor Sarah, disabling comments is not an option without comments, you might as well not have the page.īut for several MPs and councils, the engagement isn't worth the legal risk. It found about half of defamation actions between 20 stemmed from comments posted digitally, and most did not involve a media company or a public figure. if you don't remove it, I'll sue you."Ī 2018 study found Australians have an appetite for suing each other over defamatory comments posted online. "Once when someone posted a photo of a dog that had attacked another dog.
"I've been threatened maybe 10-15 times over the years," Sarah says. As the administrator of the neighbourhood Facebook group, "4069 Community and Surrounds" (20,000 members), she regularly deletes posts with dashcam photos of "bad drivers" or CCTV of alleged robbers. In Brisbane, Sarah MacKenzie heard the news.
( ABC Science: James Purtill)īut at the same time, and mostly out of sight, a ripple of concern was spreading through the many volunteer-run Facebook pages in Australia. These organisations have the money to pay damages, and their pages are often peppered with inflammatory comments.ĬNN's main Facebook page shows an error message when accessed from Australia.
Immediately after the High Court decision in early September, media attention largely focused on how the development would affect news organisations running large Facebook pages. So how chilly is this "chilling effect" going to get? Administrators regularly threatened with defamation action In the past week, at least a handful of MPs, two councils and a government agency have disabled Facebook comments, due to the defamation risk.ĬNN, meanwhile, has taken the unprecedented step of blocking Australians from accessing its Facebook page. The question now is: will these pages survive the High Court decision?ĭefamation experts expect the court ruling will have a chilling effect on speech and engagement online. These pages can be pleasant and rewarding, but they can also be places of intense vitriol forums where the usual community tensions and frustration quickly translate into name-calling and personal abuse. Almost every town has its own community Facebook page.
These are small, everyday things, but important.
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