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Australia’s highest court rules media liable for Facebook comments

21 Comments

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The victims in this case are, Facebook pages of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Centralian Advocate, Sky News Australia and The Bolt Report.

Although I am a little concerned about the High Court's decision, I have zero sympathy for the above mentioned news organizations.

These have trampled the "rights" of anyone that has been in their sights for a long long time.

18 ( +20 / -2 )

Australia is rapidly sinking down into a dystopian control society. Amazing and sad.

LOL no, It is not. But it is amazing and sad that you think so.

freedom of speech is thing of past-at least in Australia.pathetic and sad.

Freedom of speech is fine in Australia as long as it is true and it does not incite violence or persecution of people based on sex, race, religion, sexual preferences etc. Pathetic and sad that people make fake comments about freedom in Australia.

15 ( +20 / -5 )

It's about time, this is NOT about freedom of speech or freedom of anything, this is about people being held liable for their actions. Let us not forget that our freedom ends if and when it violates the freedom of others.

14 ( +20 / -6 )

Uhm. What?

3 ( +7 / -4 )

The topology of the internet needs to change. We need distributed systems to remove the vulnerability that centralised services have to state censorship. The tech is available, and the companies that roll it out will become the next GAFA. Distributed social media would have users retain content on their own systems, owning it as publishers. Providers would never see or handle content and could not monitor or censor it. The advertising model would change so that our data and preferences could not be sold - we would instead share them with providers in return for services. Ransomware attacks would no longer be viable. Self-censorship filters wold ensure that we saw nothing that we did not wish to see, blocking abuse. It is a better model.

GAFA has suppressed development, not wishing to change their own systems or compete against themselves, but government crackdowns mean that the inherent vulnerabilities in the way they operate now present an existential threat to them. They may have to reinvent themselves.

The pro-decision comments and shill voting down here is grotesquely hypocritical. If the Australian decision was mirrored in Japan, the Comments page on Japan Today would vanish.

2 ( +2 / -0 )

This decision amounts to repressive censorship as it effectively bans Web 2.0. No organisation has the capacity to moderate all comments on social media. Legal responsibility should lie with the poster. It is the wilful application of pre-net era thinking to censor the internet.

Like I said...this newspaper manages to successfully moderate the comments posted on it, as does almost every other media format. So why should Facebook be any different and get a free pass? Given almost all comments posted on Facebook are utter drivel, non factual opinion pieces; how can you describe moderating such garbage as regressive censorship? Or, is it because Facebook is the last hiding place of the homophobe, racist, antisemite, anti Vax, flat earther fanatics? Do you think those voices should be allowed to spew their filth without moderation? Even though all other media routinely moderate those comments and have done for decades?

2 ( +2 / -0 )

All this means is that Facebook and the media organisations posting on it will have to moderate readers comments. This paper manages to do that, as do most reputable newspapers, so what's the problem? The wild west of Facebook should have been brought under control years ago

0 ( +2 / -2 )

Hopefully, this means that Australians can now sue Wikipedia for allowing its editors to attack the bio articles of certain people.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

-All this means is that Facebook and the media organisations posting on it will have to moderate readers comments. This paper manages to do that, as do most reputable newspapers, so what's the problem?

This decision amounts to repressive censorship as it effectively bans Web 2.0. No organisation has the capacity to moderate all comments on social media. Legal responsibility should lie with the poster. It is the wilful application of pre-net era thinking to censor the internet.

-Hopefully, this means that Australians can now sue Wikipedia.

You want Wikipedia removed? Are there any parts of the internet that commenters would be happy to see survive, or would they prefer that we returned to a simpler age and just made do with the local paper? A new motto for a new age: Stay local, stay silent, stay gullible.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

This is how you police social media - prosecuting those who break the law on it. England fan admits abusing players after Euro 2020 loss. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-58490690

0 ( +0 / -0 )

The author and/or the publisher under certain circumstances, either individually or jointly, could be found liable for "incitement" or "negligent publication" if a reader of their publication is seriously injured, dies or suffers damage to their personal property after acting upon or using the content contained in the publication. An important distinction between the author and publisher in measuring their respective risk of liability is that publishers have frequently been excused from liability for the content contained in their publication if the content comes from a third party, such as an author. However, even though it is rare to find a publisher liable for incitement or negligent publication, there have been a number of instances where publishers have been found liable for injuries resulting from the content contained in their publications. (https://corporate.findlaw.com/intellectual-property/publisher-liability-incitement-amp-negligent-publication.html)

0 ( +0 / -0 )

This is how you police social media - prosecuting those who break the law on it. England fan admits abusing players after Euro 2020 loss. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-58490690

So, you want the police to monitor social media rather than the social media companies themselves? That's an interesting idea about a free internet you have. Police officers vetting social media comments. The cost alone would be astronomical.

It's much easier for the social media companies themselves to just delete filth and lies before the poison can be spread. Currently, by the time the police get involved the damage is often already done as the comments have been read and shared by millions. The resulting prosecution also makes the offending comments into news so they are disseminated further. Hence, moderation is the most effective way to clean up social media.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

I agree responsibility ultimately lies with the poster for their comments but their comments would be unheard but for the media publishing them so they do not escape responsibility and must be held to account. The fact that ensuring they do not facilitate defamation of character may dent their profits is evidence their business model was either faulty or cynical abusive from inception and not a reason to abrogate their responsibility.

Both poster and media are responsible though their responsibility is not one and the same.

0 ( +0 / -0 )

Expect the end of comment sections and maybe the end of social media entirely. If Facebook, Twitter or any other such platform can be held liable for what a poster says then these forums will close. Can Facebook be sued if a politician uses their Facebook page to attack a political rival or is that still protected free speech? How about if a corporation uses their Facebook page to attack a rival corporation's products or services? I have lost enormous respect for Australia.

0 ( +1 / -1 )

The world is just a big circus with all these social medias which promote bullying, defamation, violence, assault, other criminal acts and above all misinformation! The world was a simpler and better place without social media as the negatives of it are far outweighing the positives! People used to realize right from wrong and even if they didn’t agree they still knew what was right… but now people will fight tooth and nail for the wrong things thanks to social media! Humans have lost their brains and their dignity just to show freedom of expression and their rights!

-1 ( +1 / -2 )

I don’t care and you shouldn’t too. Look, I really read a lot of international media everyday, from many countries, in original or in translation, but I’ve never seen in my whole life neither those ‘Facebook pages of The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, Centralian Advocate, Sky News Australia and The Bolt Report’ nor the real papers who published them, despite maybe the S.M. Herald. Do they all really think they are somewhat important in the global or local media landscape? If they wouldn’t have been named, almost no one would even know of their existence. So calm down a bit and don’t consider you or them so extraordinarily important, famous or well-known. You just only aren’t any of it. lol

-1 ( +0 / -1 )

"Freedom of speech is fine in Australia as long as it is true..."

The problem here is that there are differing opinions about things. What if I post a science article from a creationist perspective that criticizes a university for an article their scientists posted dissing creation scientists?

I happen to believe that evolution is not true - at least in the way it is taught in universities. If I post a negative article on evolution, could I be prosecuted?

There are differing opinions on the safety of the vaccine, usage of Ivermectin, views on the virus(plandemic some call it), etc. Who decides what is true?

If you make freedom of speech dependent on someone's decision about what is true/false, I'm not sure that is true freedom of speech. It's a difficult issue because sometimes it's just really hard to know whether something is true or not.

Is Snopes.com going to be the deciding factor? I wouldn't trust them myself. We all have our biases.

-4 ( +4 / -8 )

Australia is rapidly sinking down into a dystopian control society. Amazing and sad.

-17 ( +7 / -24 )

Australia is rapidly sinking into a dystopian control society. Amazing and sad.

Yes. Its really sad and shocking. I cant believe what Australia is becoming.

-17 ( +4 / -21 )

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