Facebook defamation and the 'admins' role

CRAIG WINTER

THERE is so much more to being a Facebook administrator than most people realise, and a recent spate of complaints by people on the receiving end of Facebook lies and rumours is finally starting to push home the point.

The job of a Facebook administrator is an important one.

They spend their ownunpaid - time to create a place where we can all take part in conversations without being attacked or denigrated by keyboard warriors.

However, people often take on this role without understanding the legal responsibility that comes with it.

Since the Australian High Court ruled in 2021 that companies and individuals running Facebook pages can be held liable for third-party user comments on them, more and more complaints are being upheld against admins.

Quite simply, you cannot provide an open forum to abusers and liars without being somewhat

responsible for what they say on it. You are enabling them.

Differing opinions and robust discussion is perfectly acceptableeveryone is entitled to a point of view - it’s when comments start to get personal and nasty that admins have to step in before the law does.

Keyboard warriors are all too quick to create lies and bile to push home their opinions when they’re losing an argument, and when they lie about a person in public, that becomes defamation.

The Australian legal definition of defamation is “causing serious harm to a person’s reputation by publishing material about them that changes the way people feel about them.”

This means that written material, pictures, or spoken statements that are published can give rise to a claim for defamation.

Defamatory material can also include social media posts, comments and replies to social media posts.

Calling someone a

criminal when they haven’t been convicted can be defamation, for example.

By providing an avenue for these people to post vile messages about others, an admin is complicit in the lie, and therefore open to prosecution along with the OP (original poster) and anyone who has had damaging material published about them can take legal action against authors, publishers, broadcasters and distributors to defend their reputation.

Publishers spend thousands of dollars a year on advice from specialist defamation lawyers prior to posting ‘delicate’ stories, but Facebook admins do no such thing.

They generally have no real knowledge of defamation law either, or how it can be prosecuted.

Admins like Bronco Jensen have let their Facebook

members know up front, that any defamatory statements will be removed from the page. He says that being up front and not letting members post offensive content has made his job much easier.

“I’m lucky.” he said.

“I’ve made the page rules clear from the start and explained that comments may be deleted.”

So how does an admin avoid prosecution?

Admins are just that, administrators of a page or group.

They take on a responsibility to monitor and delete overtly vile comments and obvious lies that might harm someone’s reputation.

If an admin can show that they’ve taken reasonable steps to ensure these types of comments aren’t

allowed to remain on the page, and that they regularly monitor that page, then they have a defence.

Once an admin has received a genuine complaint, they would need to show for example, that they have “taken steps to prevent access to the publication, that are reasonable in the circumstances”, within 14 days of receiving a complaint.

“This means steps to remove, block, disable or otherwise prevent access by some or all persons to the matter,” one legal paper says.

In short, the admin needs to ensure that defamatory statements on their

pages stop. The laws also allow for reduced penalties if the poster publicly apologises and retracts the comments.

“But I don’t have time to moderate a Facebook page” is the common comment.

The fact is that if you’re an admin, you have to make time. If you’re too busy, then don’t take the job on.

THIS ARTICLE IS NOT INTENDED TO PROVIDE LEGAL ADVICE IN REGARDS TO DEFAMATION MATTERS. FOR UP TO DATE INFORMATION, CONSULT A LEGAL PROFESSIONAL OR GO TO www.legislation.qld.gov.au/view/ pdf/2016-01-01/act-2005-055