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posted by janrinok on Thursday September 09 2021, @01:36AM   Printer-friendly

High Court finds media outlets are responsible for Facebook comments in Dylan Voller defamation case - ABC News:

The High Court has dismissed an appeal by some of Australia's biggest media outlets including The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian, finding they are the publishers of third-party comments on their Facebook pages.

Former Northern Territory detainee Dylan Voller wants to sue the companies over alleged defamatory comments on their Facebook pages in the New South Wales Supreme Court.

But the case had been stalled by the dispute over whether the outlets were the publishers of the material. The High Court today found that, by running the Facebook pages, the media groups participated in communicating any defamatory material posted by third parties and are therefore responsible for the comments.

Mr Voller's defamation case had been progressing through the courts until questions arose over whether the outlets were considered the publishers of the Facebook comments, which were posted in reply to articles written between July 2016 and June 2017.

The question was sent to the High Court, and at the core of the case was the definition of publishing.

Lawyers for the media groups told the High Court they might have facilitated the process, but they were not the publishers of the material. But lawyers for Mr Voller told the High Court that, under the law, communication of a defamatory comment did not have to be done intentionally.

"Any degree of participation in that process of communication, however minor, makes the participant a publisher," the lawyers' submissions said.

One of the difficulties for the media groups at the time was that Facebook did not allow them to turn off the comments function.


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  • (Score: 3, Informative) by PiMuNu on Thursday September 09 2021, @05:04AM (8 children)

    by PiMuNu (3823) on Thursday September 09 2021, @05:04AM (#1176115)

    You do realise you are posting on a social media site?

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Troll=1, Informative=1, Touché=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Informative' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   3  
  • (Score: 2) by EJ on Thursday September 09 2021, @08:19AM (7 children)

    by EJ (2452) on Thursday September 09 2021, @08:19AM (#1176165)

    No. There is a subtle difference. This is a web forum. This isn't a site designed for you to share the random thoughts you have while pooping.

    We had Usenet and web forums long before the scourge of Fakebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.

    • (Score: 1, Troll) by PiMuNu on Thursday September 09 2021, @08:37AM (3 children)

      by PiMuNu (3823) on Thursday September 09 2021, @08:37AM (#1176171)

      > This isn't a site designed for you to share the random thoughts you have while pooping.

      https://soylentnews.org/journal.pl [soylentnews.org]

      • (Score: 2) by EJ on Thursday September 09 2021, @10:28AM (2 children)

        by EJ (2452) on Thursday September 09 2021, @10:28AM (#1176201)

        You obviously missed the point about sharing the thoughts during the act of pooping.

        That is included in the OED definition of Twitter.

        • (Score: 1, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09 2021, @12:36PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday September 09 2021, @12:36PM (#1176228)

          You must have missed fakefuck69. We have articles, comments, magic internet points, and everything else of social media. SN is social media.

          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by EJ on Thursday September 09 2021, @12:40PM

            by EJ (2452) on Thursday September 09 2021, @12:40PM (#1176229)

            Nope. SN might want to try to include social media features, but it's not. It's just a standard old-school bulletin board. Nobody gives a shit about your journal. I doubt you even have one.

            Moderation systems aren't the same as likes/dislikes. Maybe people want to use them the same way, but whatever. Still different from Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc.

            SN isn't about YOU. It's about the story that you're commenting on.

    • (Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Thursday September 09 2021, @05:18PM

      by DeathMonkey (1380) on Thursday September 09 2021, @05:18PM (#1176314) Journal

      This isn't a site designed for you to share the random thoughts you have while pooping.

      Oh shit, I've been using my journal all wrong!

    • (Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Thursday September 09 2021, @08:00PM (1 child)

      by PinkyGigglebrain (4458) on Thursday September 09 2021, @08:00PM (#1176368)

      No. There is a subtle difference. This is a web forum.

      Six of one, half dozen of the other.

      You might make the distinction but the law doesn't. Legally SN is a social media site, just like Facebook.

      --
      "Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
      • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Immerman on Friday September 10 2021, @01:18AM

        by Immerman (3985) on Friday September 10 2021, @01:18AM (#1176455)

        Agreed. "Social Media" is not a legally recognized subcategory.

        And for good reason - seems to me "social media" is one of those buzzwords that's damnably hard to nail down. Personally I'd say there's a good argument to be made that BBSes were (electronic) social media v1.0, from which evolved Usenet, internet forums, and eventually the modern manifestations.

        That said, there also seems to be something fundamentally different in the results of modern Social Media. Personally I suspect it's because of the individually curated contents and ads heavily optimized for "engagement", creating a powerful ideological echo chamber effect, for good and ill, along with a ready-made channel for organized misinformation campaigns to carefully target their narrative to where it can cause the most damage.

        Personally, given the proven ease and ubiquity of such problems, I'd be 100% in favor of any such individually-curated platform being considered a publisher, and thus responsible for the content of everything they show people, just as they would be in any other medium. It seems to me that as soon as they begin curating content they can no longer claim to simply be providing a communication platform - their curation makes them an active participant in ever feed item by virtue of the billions of other items they chose not to show you.

        Though it's worth considering that things like Google's individually optimized search results would likely put them under the same umbrella unless an exception was carved out for such search engines.