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Australian media outlets liable for Facebook comments, court finds
Australian media outlets liable for Facebook comments, court finds (Reuters Sep08)
Australia's biggest news publishers including Rupert Murdoch's the Australian are responsible for comments that readers post on their corporate Facebook pages, the High Court ruled on Wednesday.
"The acts of the (media companies) in facilitating, encouraging and thereby assisting the posting of comments by the third-party Facebook users rendered them publishers of those comments," Justice Rothman found.
Voller had said that after stories referring to him were posted on the news companies' Facebook pages, a number of third-party Facebook users made defamatory comments and he alleged that the news outlets were liable as the publishers.
At the time the comments were published, Facebook did not allow page moderators to turn off comments on posts, however it has changed that.
https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/australian-media-outlets-liable-facebook-comments-court-finds-2021-09-08/
