[LINK] Media companies scramble after judge rules they are liable for Facebook comments

[Paul Bolger]

"social medical forum"?

On Thu, 27 Jun 2019 at 10:55, Tom Worthington <tom.worthington at tomw.net.au>
wrote:

> On 25/6/19 10:45 pm, Stephen Loosley wrote:
>
> > Possibly this new ruling regarding defamatory remarks is also
> > applicable to Link etc? ...
>
> By a remarkable coincidence, this was just released:
>
>                         LINKALEERT - THE LINK INSTITUTE
>
>         Institute Moves Offshore to Avoid Social Media Liability
>
> Dateline: Pvcee Atoll, 26 June 2019
>
> The Link Institute today announced it had moved its Internet server to
> the newly established independent nation of LinkLand, on the artificial
> atoll of Pvcee.
>
> Institute director, Professor Klerphell, said that they were activating
> contingency plans put in place in the event the judge ruled media
> companies were responsible for defamatory remarks on their social media
> platforms.
>
>         "We have been worried about this possibility for some time. Our
> Chinese
> engineering subsidiary was able to apply its artificial island
> construction skills, together with materials from our Australian waste
> recycling arm, to build Pvcee Atoll in the mid Pacific. As we have
> declared independence, our servers are now outside Australian
> jurisdiction."
>
> Professor Klerphell slammed the Judges decision:
>
>         "Just because our organization set up a social medical forum for
> commercial purposes, and encouraged people to say whatever they want, we
> do not believe we can be held responsible for the outcome. We were as
> shocked as anyone by what some of the trolls, racists and bigots wrote
> on our 'Trolls, Racists and Bigots Free-for-all Forum'. However, our
> revenue stream is based on stirring up division in society, and without
> that controversy we can't make large profits."
>
> The Link Institute went on to condemn Australia for failing to protect
> companies profiting from free discussion of ideas. Klerphell went on to
> say:
>
>         "What next, are cinemas to discourage people from shouting 'Fire!'
> in a
> crowded room? Are we not to allow radio personalities to instigate race
> riots? Are we to ban selling guns to children? What sort of nanny state
> are we heading towards?"
>
> ENDS
>
> ;-)
>
>
> --
> Tom Worthington, MEd FHEA FACS CP http://www.tomw.net.au +61(0)419496150
> TomW Communications Pty Ltd. PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617, Australia
> Liability limited by a scheme approved under Prof. Standards Legislation
>
> Honorary Lecturer, Computer Science, Australian National University
> https://cecs.anu.edu.au/research/profile/tom-worthington
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