Australian High Court: media are "publishers" of users' defamatory FB comments

abc.net.au

24 points·YPPH··5 comments

Interesting implications and parallels for arguments about Section 230 in the US.

I suspect this will lead to many more 'comments disabled', as the article itself notes:

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

I have noticed over the last few months the Australian Broadcasting Corporation will occasionally disable comments on contentious posts, adding a comment in effect saying that it's because they don't have a moderator available to keep an eye on it.

No doubt their legal team has been anticipating this decision.

The High Court decision [1] is a very worthwhile read, with multiple viewpoints presented by the different justices and numerous references to and analysis of relevant cases dating back as far as the early 1900's. It also refers to related recent cases involving defamation and social media.

For this particular case, the decision was originally made by the NSW Supreme Court on 24 June 2019, reaffirmed at the NSW Court of Appeals on 1 June 2020 and again reaffirmed by the High Court of Australia on 8 September 2021.

[1] [2021] HCA 27, https://eresources.hcourt.gov.au/downloadPdf/2021/HCA/27

It appears that Facebook is off the hook, since it wasn't named as a defendant. Or am I reading this wrong?

That's right, the action is against a media company who operates Facebook pages, not Facebook.

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