Australian media outlets can be sued for comments made by readers on their social media accounts, the country’s top court said on Wednesday. “Appellants were liable for the publication of allegedly defamatory ‘comments’ that were posted by third-party Facebook users in response to the content,” the High Court of Australia observed.
The landmark ruling could have wide implications for how Australian news firms and others use social media. The world-first judgement could also influence defamation cases globally. The decision came after the court rejected appeals by some of Australia’s biggest media houses. The media outlets had appealed against a defamation case filed by Dylan Voller, a former Northern Territory detainee, who accused them of “publishing” defamatory comments on their Facebook pages. However, there was a debate going on whether the media outlets were the “publishers” of such material. The ruling said in creating a public Facebook page and posting news content there, the outlets had “facilitated, encouraged and thereby assisted the publication” of user comments. The court rejected the appellants’ argument that for a person to be a publisher “they must know of the relevant defamatory matter and intend to convey it.” The unprecedented judgement came in view of a 2016 case when images of a cruel treatment meted out to 17-year-old Voller in youth detention was exposed in a TV report. It sparked a national outcry and many Facebook users made derogatory comments on news stories shared on social media by the media houses.
