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Updated October 8th, 2021 at 07:13 IST

Australia to change defamation laws, wants Facebook held liable for anonymous comments

Those who post defamatory comments without disclosing their identification should be held liable for those comments, Australia PM Morrison stated

Reported by: Zaini Majeed
Australia
IMAGE: AP | Image:self
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Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Thursday lambasted Facebook and other social media platforms as a “coward’s palace,” stressing that he will hold the digital platforms, including Facebook, liable for defamatory comments that appear ‘anonymously’. The anonymous posters increasingly harass and bully online, making the unregulated platforms unhealthy for the users. The Australian government now wants them identified as it calls on Facebook and other platforms to take accountability for such defamation online. Morrison’s warnings come in the aftermath of Canberra stating earlier this year that it will oblige Google and Facebook to pay for journalism on social networking sites. 

Anonymous 'should be held liable' for derogatory comments, says PM Morrison 

Those who post defamatory comments without disclosing their identification should be held liable for those comments, Morrison stated, according to Associated Press. He added, that it was time that Facebook held accountability for such behaviour. “Cowards who go anonymously on to social media and vilify people, and harass them, and bully them, and engage in defamatory statements, they need to be responsible for what they’re saying,” Morrison was quoted as saying. “Social media has become a coward’s palace where people can just go on there, not say who they are, destroy people’s lives and say the foulest and offensive things to people, and do so with impunity,” he added. Australian high courts had set to rewrite the country’s defamation laws earlier last month. They mandated that the media outlets be held liable for defamatory comments posted by third parties on their Facebook pages.

Facebook threatens Australia of 'blocking publishers' 

American social media conglomerate corporation, Facebook had earlier threatened Australian regulators of not letting users post news content in the country as the Scott Morrison government prepared for a new law that would force the social network to pay the publishers for their articles. The regulators in Australia have wanted the tech giants including Facebook and Google to pay for the content that is reposted from the news outlets. While Google warned its users that its search services could be “dramatically worse” as the result of the law (if passed), Facebook has said that the draft of new regulation “ misunderstands the dynamics of the internet”.

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Published October 8th, 2021 at 07:13 IST

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