Liability for third party comments

FAIRFAX MEDIA PUBLICATIONS PTY LTD v DYLAN VOLLER NATIONWIDE NEWS PTY LIMITED v DYLAN VOLLER AUSTRALIAN NEWS CHANNEL PTY LTD v DYLAN VOLLER [2021] HCA 27

The High Court has handed down a significant decision today on the liability of publishers for third-party user comments. As stated in the High Court summary of the judgement:

"A majority of the Court held that the liability of a person as a publisher depends upon whether that person, by facilitating and encouraging the relevant communication, "participated" in the communication of the defamatory matter to a third person. The majority rejected the appellants' argument that for a person to be a publisher they must know of the relevant defamatory matter and intend to convey it. Each appellant, by the creation of a public Facebook page and the posting of content on that page, facilitated, encouraged and thereby assisted the publication of comments from third-party Facebook users. The appellants were therefore publishers of the third-party comments."

It will be interesting to see how the publishers respond to the judgment.

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