[LINK] itNews: Tas Police fed up with Social Media

[Roger Clarke]

>At 08:46 AM 16/07/2012, Roger Clarke wrote:
>>"Police should be contacted only where the content relates directly
>>to a crime," he said.

At 9:55 +1000 16/7/12, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>Question: Is defamation a crime or a civil offence?

I was about to quip "Only in Singapore, and even then only if the 
alleged defamee is someone in the ruling clique".  (Okay, 'ruling 
clique' is technically inaccurate, but you know what I mean).

And of course there's Thailand as well, although that's really lese 
majeste, which applies in (some?) other jurisdictions as well:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lese-majesty

Lese majeste existed in Australia until *at least* 1940:
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/46721967

And yes, there is such a thing as criminal defamation in Oz, e.g.
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/nsw/consol_act/ca190082/s529.html
http://www.legalaid.wa.gov.au/InformationAboutTheLaw/treatment/Pages/Thingspeoplesay.aspx

I wonder if there are many prosecutions.

I doubt it.  But Don Wetherburn's NSW Crime Stats would tell us about 
that jursidiction at least.

Here's a recent press report from SA:
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/teen-guilty-of-facebook-slur/story-e6frea83-1225801651074



>And what about cyberbullying? Will the police act then? What about
>racial vilification? The broad brush about what happens offline
>versus online isn't good enough a distinction.

Quite right.

But they're trying to filter out the 'this person was rude about me!' 
complaints.

______________________

>As far as I can tell, the individual can still sue someone for
>defamation. Let's clog the courts then! ;-)
>But there are cases of criminal defamation, but according to the link
>below, it appears to come after a finding of a judge that the case
>involved malice, rather than police doing anything in advance of the trial.
>http://www.thenewsmanual.net/Resources/medialaw_in_australia_02.html

-- 
Roger Clarke                                 http://www.rogerclarke.com/

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Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Law               University of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science    Australian National University