"The High Court in this case has decided that if you are the host of a Facebook page, you are going to be treated as publisher, even though the comments are put there by a third party."
Even obvious by the definition of "publisher" for the purposes of that law? I'd think if it was obvious, the courts wouldn't have the opposite opinion. The fact that the newspaper has the power to stop the publication of the comments proves they have a lot of power like a publisher.
Facebook has even more power to stop the publishing of those comments though.
ISPs also have the power to stop the publishing of those comments. In fact, ISPs are necessary to facilitate the publishing of any comments on the internet.
How high up do we go though? Is it the news org that created the space for comments? The website owner who created the tools to create a space? The hosting platform who provided the space to host the website? Or the ISP who delivered those comments to the user?
If facebook is responsible, why not the ISP as well? Maybe we should accept that platforms like facebook and reddit are similar to VPS hosting companies where we delegate the legal responsibility down further to the one who used the software to create the space.
This might actually be a good thing as delegating down means a much larger group of people moderating and those people moderate as they see fit but become legally responsible for their actions.
I think you are heading in the right direction. I think it all comes down to moderation.
If Facebook was and unmoderated wild west with a linear timeline, then people would know they have to self moderate.
Facebook as made some decisions about what is acceptable, then actively promotes that content to other people, that is taking responsibility for the content, so they should be held responsible as well.
Note that Facebook was a not a respondent in the original defamation case. In any case, multiple parties can be responsible for publication. From point 55 of the judgement:
> The Court of Appeal was correct to hold that the acts of the appellants in facilitating, encouraging and thereby assisting the posting of comments by the third-party Facebook users rendered them publishers of those comments.
That's because Facebook is not here in Australia, much deeper pockets, and we already have bullshit laws that consider Google and Facebook carriers (like a telephone company) not publishers.
But lets be clear, telephone and electricity companies don't moderate your content, or use algorithms that makes some content easier to find than others.
Is the blog displayed on your domain or theirs? To what extent do they moderate content you have on the blog? Do they promote your blog to other users of WordPress?
I feel like if the answers to those questions change the outcome, then the problem is more nuanced than a single line quote followed by "that's just insane". Especially since I think it's more than possible to come up with a list of questions that justify the court's decision.
(Probably something like "does the news org initiate the discussion, do they have the ability to moderate the discussion, does their branding appear prominently on the page").
Although insane, I do want strict regulations for Facebook pages. A Facebook page can be sold to anyone, So obviously pages with large number of followers get lot of buy requests often from malicious actors.
After years of not using Facebook I found that I'm part of Facebook pages which I don't remember ever following. Which was one of the reasons I deleted the account, I do not want to be accused of following pages involved in criminal activities when I actually followed cute kittens pages 10 years ago.
The article indicates this was a 4 year legal battle and the last ruling in the 2019 Supreme Court was similar. It has nothing at all to do with Coronavirus.
BTW “Australia” is not in lockdown. Some states of Australia are.
I wonder if they're using the current crisis to push through an agenda?
I couldn't find any information on which Australian states are in lock down but I'd bet the Northern Territory isn't one of them. Relatively few people live there. Do you see where this is going?
i suspect diversion from the humiliatingly bungled vaccination procurement effort plays into the calculus, shifting anger towards something nominally defensible instead of protracted incompetence
I recently flew to Australia, and from experience I can tell you virtually nobody knows about these laws being changes. The one discussed here, the new "hacking" powers given to the government, the money being paid to Murdoch by FB and Google.
The very vast majority of Aussies have no clue about any of it, and the media is keeping silent.
Yes, this is the key point that people are missing when they wonder why there isn't an uproar. Most Aussies don't have a clue what the government is really up to. The media here is complicit and extremely consolidated - essentially all commercial media companies are sympathetic towards a single (conservative) party, Murdoch's media is openly partisan and has a dominant market share, the public broadcaster has been gutted and the board stacked with LNP stooges. The end result is all media narratives in lock-step pushing a pro-LNP message.
The media boardrooms are a popular revolving door for politicians to get the post-politics payday, and the media has been known to give politicians favourable treatment when they want legislation in their interests to be passed. [0]
The whole time, the media is telling the public not to worry, everything is ok - unless a Labor government is in power, in which case the messaging is that the sky is falling, tax and debt is skyrocketing, and they want to steal pensioner's benefits.
The federal government is screwing many things up, but I don't get the impression they're pushing through an agenda that takes advantage of COVID. They've been taking advantage of every other opportunity already.
Northern Territory has recently had minor lockdowns. There is not much of a current lockdown in WA, SA, NT or Tasmania. Probably a limited one in Queensland if at all.
Regional Victoria lockdown ends tonight at midnight, so then it will be the state of NSW and Melbourne in lockdown, which is about 16 million people out of the 25 million in the country. 65% of the population in lockdown.
Closer to 50%, not quite sure where you got 65% from. (8.17 + 5.08) / 25.69 = 51.58%
it is still a lot of people, but it would be good if you could try and be accurate with this stuff. There's been a lot of incorrect stuff being said about Australian lockdowns on HN lately.
I'm not the original poster, but I mean, it's kind of obvious that it came from dividing literally the only two other numbers present in the comment you're replying to.
If the issue is that you disagree with those population numbers, then maybe say that explicitly and point to where you're getting your numbers from so that the point of contention can be identified instead of everyone just yelling that their unsourced numbers are better than the other person's unsourced numbers?
I didn't really think it was necessary to provide a source as it is literally as simple as googling "nsw population", "melbourne population", and "australia population". The results of those are a little out of date but still in the ballpark of 50%. If you are after official numbers then the ABS is the place to go: https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/national...
Typical news.com.au fear mongering. This article is about a single building in NSW, yet the article makes it appear that they are talking about the entire state.
This isn't to say that Australia doesn't have some strong lockdown laws at the moment, but this is a poor article to back up that claim.
> The newspapers appear to be taking the logical response of switching off Facebook comments going forward.
Which is very welcome in my opinion. Newspaper comments sections (whether on their sites or Facebook) are some most worthless comment sections in existence.
Had I not been able to, nothing of value would have been lost. Actually, something might have been gained. I could have discovered the cure for cancer in that time or just stared blankly at the wall. Both of those would have had a better impact on the world.
I honestly understand where the courts are coming from.
If you can accept the fact that defamation laws are a valid limit on free speech (which Australians have), then it follows that news organisations shouldn't be able to absolve themselves of all blame after posting inflammatory content, encouragng readers to "share their opinions" and failing to provide any sort of moderation whatsoever.
As long as all social media companies allow news orgs to turn off comments. I think this is a great law. News comments have long since been the most toxic pool of crap on the internet.
Given that public gatherings are currently illegal in the majority of Australia and the government are passing draconian laws every week what do you think the average Australian who disagrees with them should do?
It is perfectly legal to disagree with them. You just can't say things already illegal and have been illegal for a very long time. Or publicly plan a mass illegal event.
This law just specifies who is responsible for the laws being broken.
Yes, in that you're just ignoring the comment you replied to and repeating the same incorrect nonsense.
Disagreeing with a law does not require breaking that law. You're perfectly welcome to disagree with the lockdowns in Victoria and NSW, and you can do that wherever you want. You're not welcome to break them.
You can disagree with them though. Disagreeing is not limited to posting an event with a time and location which is illegal. There are many ways to disagree.
How would commenting on a news article allow you to communicate your disagreement to the people in charge? Contact your local representative for instance. Do people really think anyone other than equally angry people read anything they wrote in those comments?
>News comments have long since been the most toxic pool of crap on the internet.
Looks to me like every other anti-free speech measure enacted in the last 5 years. Just remove comments so propaganda can't be countered by the people. Only the official proclamations can be allowed.
Quite often, I find comments many times more insightful than the news stories themselves. Losing them limits the value of news sites to me.
PS: You seem to hate comments and love limiting free speech yet here you are... commenting on news stories. Rules for thee, but not for me. How very hypocritical of you.
I don't hate comments. I disagree with unmoderated comment sections with no legal responsibility. On HN the comments are moderated and illegal content is removed. On FB news pages, it often is not.
Well those same media companies pushed to get paid by Facebook for their own posts (they they post) on Facebook's platform -- so it seems right they should take responsibility for them.
There seems to be, within the Australian users of HN a strong pro-censorship and anti free speech feeling. When the US users wake up, we should expect to see more push back on this story. I'm continually puzzled by the cultural reasons for such but it could be that these users are being honest and unfiltered with their own posts on social media. Perhaps americans are more filtered?
I suspect, politically, that it's because of two things:
Firstly, News Corp which has poisoned the well, it has made these users suspect and distrustful of all media now and welcoming of their governments censorship.
Secondly, it's due to the coronavirus lockdown implementations and associated anti-lockdown protests where the concept of free speech is now associated with harm and danger to themselves and their community.
Culturally, it could be that the users are members of the urban-living educated tech literate class. This class, and class issues generally is a new thing for Australia. Australia thinks of itself as generally classless and equal. I think we are seeing a kind of new tech class but without the informal rules (e.g. filtering, politeness) governing how more entrenched class based societies operate. But as I say, I'm puzzled and guessing here. It's certainly the only English speaking country where the users appear to be both champions of their government actions and anti news. Perhaps theres more nuance.
It could be that these users are actually just being honest and unfiltered in their posts here, which is sort of ironic given the nature of the featured article.
In general, there is no less of an anti-censorship stance among Australians than among those in the US.
What we do have in Australia - with its accompanying advantages and disadvantages - are strong protections against defamation, particularly from the media. And it's that machinery which is at work here.
Nothing is stopping the media continuing to allow comments on social media posts, if they accept the legal risks associated with defamation, or they enact a sufficient level of moderation for content which carries that risk. This is a purely commercial play, not a governmental censorship one.
None of this excuses our federal government, which continues to veer towards the authoritarian end of the spectrum. But that's another topic.
I'm glad HN isn't hosted in Australia, or I'd have to find another hangout.
It seems like we're going to be saying farewell to any web sites hosted in Australia. If you can be sued for any random thing hosted on your servers, unless you've got a fire brigade of lawyers on tap, you're just waiting to be sued out of existence.
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[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 139 ms ] thread^^ That's just insane.
ISPs also have the power to stop the publishing of those comments. In fact, ISPs are necessary to facilitate the publishing of any comments on the internet.
If facebook is responsible, why not the ISP as well? Maybe we should accept that platforms like facebook and reddit are similar to VPS hosting companies where we delegate the legal responsibility down further to the one who used the software to create the space.
This might actually be a good thing as delegating down means a much larger group of people moderating and those people moderate as they see fit but become legally responsible for their actions.
If Facebook was and unmoderated wild west with a linear timeline, then people would know they have to self moderate.
Facebook as made some decisions about what is acceptable, then actively promotes that content to other people, that is taking responsibility for the content, so they should be held responsible as well.
> The Court of Appeal was correct to hold that the acts of the appellants in facilitating, encouraging and thereby assisting the posting of comments by the third-party Facebook users rendered them publishers of those comments.
But lets be clear, telephone and electricity companies don't moderate your content, or use algorithms that makes some content easier to find than others.
For example see News Media and Digital Platforms Mandatory Bargaining Code - it requires platforms such as FB to enter into commercial arrangements with news media (https://www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Bills_Legislat...)
Don't get me started about the mandatory bargaining code. I think the ISP should have held their ground and pulled out of Australia.
(Probably something like "does the news org initiate the discussion, do they have the ability to moderate the discussion, does their branding appear prominently on the page").
After years of not using Facebook I found that I'm part of Facebook pages which I don't remember ever following. Which was one of the reasons I deleted the account, I do not want to be accused of following pages involved in criminal activities when I actually followed cute kittens pages 10 years ago.
[0] https://www.news.com.au/national/nsw-act/news/nsw-health-lim...
BTW “Australia” is not in lockdown. Some states of Australia are.
I couldn't find any information on which Australian states are in lock down but I'd bet the Northern Territory isn't one of them. Relatively few people live there. Do you see where this is going?
Seems like baseless speculation.
> I couldn't find any information on which Australian states are in lock down
Wikipedia or google news have the answers you’re looking for. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19_pandemic...
The very vast majority of Aussies have no clue about any of it, and the media is keeping silent.
The media boardrooms are a popular revolving door for politicians to get the post-politics payday, and the media has been known to give politicians favourable treatment when they want legislation in their interests to be passed. [0]
The whole time, the media is telling the public not to worry, everything is ok - unless a Labor government is in power, in which case the messaging is that the sky is falling, tax and debt is skyrocketing, and they want to steal pensioner's benefits.
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/28/business/dealbook/austral...
Northern Territory has recently had minor lockdowns. There is not much of a current lockdown in WA, SA, NT or Tasmania. Probably a limited one in Queensland if at all.
5th August 2020. This is from last year.
Right now only two states are in lockdown (NSW and Victoria), with Queensland being the only other state with active locally-acquired cases.
it is still a lot of people, but it would be good if you could try and be accurate with this stuff. There's been a lot of incorrect stuff being said about Australian lockdowns on HN lately.
> not quite sure where you got 65% from
I'm not the original poster, but I mean, it's kind of obvious that it came from dividing literally the only two other numbers present in the comment you're replying to.
If the issue is that you disagree with those population numbers, then maybe say that explicitly and point to where you're getting your numbers from so that the point of contention can be identified instead of everyone just yelling that their unsourced numbers are better than the other person's unsourced numbers?
This isn't to say that Australia doesn't have some strong lockdown laws at the moment, but this is a poor article to back up that claim.
The newspapers appear to be taking the logical response of switching off Facebook comments going forward.
Which is very welcome in my opinion. Newspaper comments sections (whether on their sites or Facebook) are some most worthless comment sections in existence.
Absolutely nothing of value will be lost.
> Absolutely nothing of value will be lost.
You are currently commenting in the comment section of a linked news story.
If you can accept the fact that defamation laws are a valid limit on free speech (which Australians have), then it follows that news organisations shouldn't be able to absolve themselves of all blame after posting inflammatory content, encouragng readers to "share their opinions" and failing to provide any sort of moderation whatsoever.
This law just specifies who is responsible for the laws being broken.
Do you see any issues with this?
Yes, in that you're just ignoring the comment you replied to and repeating the same incorrect nonsense.
Disagreeing with a law does not require breaking that law. You're perfectly welcome to disagree with the lockdowns in Victoria and NSW, and you can do that wherever you want. You're not welcome to break them.
Looks to me like every other anti-free speech measure enacted in the last 5 years. Just remove comments so propaganda can't be countered by the people. Only the official proclamations can be allowed.
Quite often, I find comments many times more insightful than the news stories themselves. Losing them limits the value of news sites to me.
PS: You seem to hate comments and love limiting free speech yet here you are... commenting on news stories. Rules for thee, but not for me. How very hypocritical of you.
I suspect, politically, that it's because of two things:
Firstly, News Corp which has poisoned the well, it has made these users suspect and distrustful of all media now and welcoming of their governments censorship.
Secondly, it's due to the coronavirus lockdown implementations and associated anti-lockdown protests where the concept of free speech is now associated with harm and danger to themselves and their community.
Culturally, it could be that the users are members of the urban-living educated tech literate class. This class, and class issues generally is a new thing for Australia. Australia thinks of itself as generally classless and equal. I think we are seeing a kind of new tech class but without the informal rules (e.g. filtering, politeness) governing how more entrenched class based societies operate. But as I say, I'm puzzled and guessing here. It's certainly the only English speaking country where the users appear to be both champions of their government actions and anti news. Perhaps theres more nuance.
It could be that these users are actually just being honest and unfiltered in their posts here, which is sort of ironic given the nature of the featured article.
What we do have in Australia - with its accompanying advantages and disadvantages - are strong protections against defamation, particularly from the media. And it's that machinery which is at work here.
Nothing is stopping the media continuing to allow comments on social media posts, if they accept the legal risks associated with defamation, or they enact a sufficient level of moderation for content which carries that risk. This is a purely commercial play, not a governmental censorship one.
None of this excuses our federal government, which continues to veer towards the authoritarian end of the spectrum. But that's another topic.
EDIT: fixed typo.
It seems like we're going to be saying farewell to any web sites hosted in Australia. If you can be sued for any random thing hosted on your servers, unless you've got a fire brigade of lawyers on tap, you're just waiting to be sued out of existence.