A push to make social media companies liable in defamation is great for newspapers and lawyers, but not you
In light of the increasing push for social media companies to be held to the same defamation laws as publishers, Michael Douglas explains the delicate balance legislators will need to strike, in this crossposting from The Conversation.
At his Wednesday address to the National Press Club, Attorney-General Christian Porter said the federal government is pursuing “immediate” defamation law reform.
The announcement seemed a bit odd, as defamation is a subject for state and territory governments to legislate on. A NSW-led law reform process has been ongoing for years.
Last June, the NSW Department of Justice released a report on its statutory review of the NSW legislation. In February, a further discussion paper was published by a NSW-led Defamation Working Party.
The theme of these documents, and the various public submissions that followed, is that Australian defamation law is not suited to the digital age.
One of the great things about the internet is of course the freedom of speech, but just as in real life we should be responsible for what we say.
There’s always a mix of good and bad that comes with any policy change, and FB’s host of changes following the Cambridge Analytica scandal also did restrict overall how the platform worked. People may start becoming more careful of what they share online, especially if it’s defamatory and without evidence, and some may decry this as a loss of freedom, but I think it’s alway a good thing to be considerate of what we produce.