A recent ruling by the High Court in Australia sets the – already hot – field of legal liability for defamatory comments on Facebook on fire!
According to the ruling, in some circumstances, the Australian media outlets could be held liable for user comments left on their respective Facebook Pages.
The goal, according to an interpretation of the decision, is to limit incendiary reports that have been written in such a way as to provoke anger, passions, respective comments and, in the final analysis, engagement.
In theory, such a ruling could actually be a path forward for instituting more factual reporting, and holding publishers to account for triggering online mob attacks based on their angling of a case.
Nevertheless, it is easily understood that the obvious counter-argument would form a new range of concerns around potentially limiting journalistic free speech in particular and general free speech in general.
No matter where one stands in this debate, it is certain that the burden for social media managers grows immensely. And if the view that the ruling exposes all page owners to lawsuits, not just the media, is valid, the scenery changes dramatically.
All these are valid today only in Australia. But what about tomorrow?
