A ruling by the Australian High Court is something all Australian Facebook Page owners need to consider.

Basically, the High Court has ruled that media organisations are legally responsible for the comments on their social media pages, even those written by others.

This means that an individual who believes they have been defamed in comments, can now bypass the person making the comments, and go after the page owner instead.

The message from the High Court is that if a company wants a presence on social media, it's also responsible for moderating the content made in response to its posts.

According to communications law expert Brett Walker from ANU "Any organisation which administers a social media account could also be liable for defamation on the same basis — for example, businesses, sporting clubs and community groups"

Currently, WebSolutionZ are set up as page owner on a number of client Facebook pages. We will be reviewing this situation on a page-by-page basis to assess our risk.

For more information: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-09-12/facebook-defamation-high-court-ruling-exposes-more-than-media/100451198