Liable for Trolls: A New Social Media Conundrum
With the Australian high court ruling parties can be sued for social media comments, consequences are wide-reaching for anyone with a large digital presence. How do we best deal with this?
Terms like “trolls”, “defamation”, “inflammatory”, and “digressive” are not often forefront for firms, government bodies and individuals when considering their digital engagement strategy. After all, how can you control third-party activity and comments on your next Facebook, Instagram or even YouTube post?
Unfortunately, these terms are now absolutely integral. In a September ruling, the majority of the High Court of Australia Justices found that administrators of public social media pages are ‘publishers’ of comments posted by third parties and the public. This ruling makes them potentially liable for defamation in Australian courts.
The High Court Ruling
The judgement was regarding comments made by members of the public about Dylan Voller, whose treatment at Don Dale Youth Detention Centre was launched into the Australian media in 2016. Voller subsequently sued media companies over the Facebook comments on articles about his treatment at the Detention Centre.
The High Court ruled that in creating a public Facebook page and posting news content there, the Media companies had “facilitated, encouraged and thereby assisted the publication” of public comments, actually deeming them “publishers” of the comments in the eyes of defamation law.
What this means for Businesses and Government
If you are the host of a Facebook page, you are likely to be treated as a publisher of any comments by a third-party or a “troll” that may be defamatory. This ruling extends to other platforms with the capability to leave commentary.
“Any business that has a public social media presence, or even the capability to comment on their website, needs to review their media engagement process.” – Caitlin Green
Social Media, marketing and management teams need to be aware of this and address the problem. Ramifications are wide-reaching and impact anyone engaging its customers, clients, and the broader public through its social channels.
How we could deal with this
Comments are extremely valuable. It is the new written form, the platform allowing a follower or individual to express opinions, avoid interruption and simply be heard.
Comments facilitate engagement, allow feedback and are an excellent customer interaction interface. It is often not an option and certainly not recommended to mute your audience by toggling all comments to “off”.
KINSHIP digital has solutions that eliminate the need to manually identify all media posts that raise defamatory comments. We can help reduce the risk of liability through:
1. Automatic identification of these comments on media platforms across 35+ digital channels and more than 350 million blogs and digital sources.
2. Screening and elimination of defamatory content across platforms.
3. Alert systems and real-time reporting across audience groups communicating on digital channels.
Have a look at our client’s stories to see how we have helped transform their digital strategy.
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