CNN has become the first American news outlet to stop using Facebook in Australia to share content. The decision is in response to the recent court ruling in Australia, which says that media companies will be held responsible for comments people post under articles on Facebook.
The news outlets said it had appealed a lower court ruling along with three major Australian news organizations, arguing that they could not be held responsible for what readers say under news articles, but it was dismissed.
In an effort to beat the ruling, CNN said it approached Facebook and asked if the tech firm would “support CNN and other publishers by disabling the comment functionality on their platform in Australia,” according to a statement issued by a CNN spokesperson, who said that Facebook “chose not to do so.”
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“We are disappointed that Facebook, once again, has failed to ensure its platform is a place for credible journalism and productive dialogue around current events among its users,” the CNN spokesperson said, adding that the media outlet will continue to publish on its own platforms in Australia.
The turn of events leaves CNN with no option than to quit the social media platform entirely in Australia, choosing not to share news contents on Facebook anymore.
CNN said it asked Facebook to offer a Page-wide setting to turn off comments in Australia. Instead, Facebook provided instructions for how the media organization could disable comments post by post.
Facebook has a comment disabling tool it launched in March, which allows people and publishers with Pages to turn off comments to posts, or otherwise limit the ability for people to comment to selected Pages and profiles. But it is not applicable in this case.
According to CNN, a Facebook spokesperson said in a statement that the company supports the “ongoing reform of Australia’s defamation law framework” and looks forward to “greater clarity and certainty in this area.”
“While it’s not our place to provide legal guidance to CNN, we have provided them with the latest information on tools we make available to help publishers manage comments,” the spokesperson said.
Where it all started
In 2016, an Australian youth detained in the youth detention system, was maltreated. His abuse was scandalous and prompted the youngster to sue Fairfax Media Publications, Nationwide News and Australian News Channel because comments made on their Facebook pages accused him of crimes his attorney says he did not commit.
The turning point came with the ruling, which now makes it possible for media outlets to be held responsible over the comments of their followers on Facebook.
Although the media companies argued that they shouldn’t be held responsible for user comments, and appealed the ruling of the trial court, the appeal court dismissed it, ruling that “appellants’ attempt to portray themselves as passive and unwitting victims of Facebook’s functionality has an air of unreality.”
“Having taken action to secure the commercial benefit of the Facebook functionality, the appellants bear the legal consequences,” the High Court wrote, adding that the appeals court “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.”
CNN said the High Court’s ruling did not resolve the underlying defamation case against the publishers, and it has since returned to the Supreme Court of New South Wales.
This new development is the latest in the year, adding to the proposed legislation that saw Facebook at loggerheads with the Australian government early in the year. In February, the Australian government had proposed a legislation that force Facebook and Google to pay news publishers for their contents used on their platforms. After Australia passed the News Media Bargaining Code, Facebook immediately blocked people in Australia from seeing news contents. But the social media platform rescinded its decision after negotiating changes with the Australian government.
The High Court ruling means news outlets will only have to choose between taking responsibility for comments made under their posts and quitting Facebook in Australia. With the latter being the shortest way to avoid trouble, expect many more news outlets to follow the steps of CNN.