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Dylan Voller was already a polarizing figure in Australia when disturbing, violent and blatantly false accusations against him began appearing on Facebook.

Mr. Voller became an overnight celebrity in 2016 after a television story aired about the mistreatment of children in the country’s criminal detention system. photograph 17 years old, hooded and tied to a chair by the guards. The picture is simulated by some The statement against the prisoners at Abu Ghraib in Iraq shocked many Australians, prompting a national investigation.

Beneath the articles about the investigation written by leading Australian news outlets and posted on their Facebook page, several commentators attacked Mr Voller. Some made false accusations, including that Mr Voller raped an elderly woman and assaulted and blinded a Salvation Army volunteer with a fire extinguisher.

Mr. Voller has sued news media outlets, alleging that instead of directly confronting the commenters, they have defamed him by allowing comments on their Facebook page. Most importantly, she didn’t ask them to remove the comments before she filed her lawsuit, arguing that they should essentially be responsible for comments they may not even be aware of.

“The comments were being shared and I was worried that people would think they were true,” said Mr. Voller.

Her Victory The country’s highest court this month could be a blow to Facebook’s ability to eyeball its content. It also muddies the waters further in a global debate over who should be held accountable for what is said on social media.

Mr. Voller still has to prove that he was defamed. But in response to the high court’s ruling that media outlets can be held liable for the online comments of others, some Australian news outlets are reconsidering what type of content they post on Facebook, potentially limiting interaction with readers.

“We will not be posting stories about politicians, Indigenous issues, court decisions, anything we think might get a problematic reaction from readers,” said Dave Earley, audience editor for Guardian Australia.

Facebook has added a feature that allows a page admin to completely turn off comments on a post. But Mr Earley, the platform reluctant Providing more fine-grained moderation options as comments drive engagement, which is key to Facebook’s business model.

“It’s in their best interest to have comments on everything,” said Mr. Earley.

Facebook did not respond to requests for comment on Mr Voller’s case.

For the long insistent Facebook natural For public discourse, the ship may offer a kind of implicit pardon from the court’s decision. While the company may still face libel lawsuits in Australia, plaintiffs will be more likely to take local people and media companies to court.

And if adopted more broadly, the Australian court-sanctioned opinion could stifle the kind of free speech that often keeps users hooked on social media.

The decision extends responsibility for user comments to anyone with a public Facebook page, not just news outlets. For example, the admin of a Facebook community can be sued for comments left under a post, even if the admin is not aware of it.

Australia’s decision came at a time when many parts of the world grappled with how to hold accountable for what was said on social media. In the United States, Section 230 of the Communications Ethics Act recognizes that online platforms automatically have immunity from what people say in third-party comments.

Legislation made, wanted A “gift to the internet” for its pro-speech stance has recently come under scrutiny from both sides of the political spectrum. opposite reasons. Democrats argued that Section 230 should be repealed so that social media companies can be held accountable for the widespread misinformation and hate speech on their platforms. Republicans who dislike the law say online platforms use the law to silence conservative views.

Elsewhere, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro is attempting to legislate excessively against moderation. tested However defective banning social media companies from removing provocative or misleading content, including allegations that the results will be rigged if he loses the election next year. British Parliament takes into account a scheme that gives media regulators the power to force platforms to remove illegal and harmful content.

Still, Daphne Keller, director of the platform regulation program at Stanford University’s Center for Cyber ​​Policy, said the broad reach of the Australian decision made the country an “extreme outlier”.

He said the most comparable measure was 2015. to manage He said in the European Court of Human Rights that the owner of an online forum could be liable for harmful comments left there without the owner realizing it. But a year later, a European court said the decision only applies to hate speech, not defamation.

“The court has ruled that such a rule would violate the fundamental right of freedom of expression of internet users,” Keller said.

While the Australian decision directly affects only Facebook page administrators in the country, it could have global implications. A court in 2002 managed He said an Australian citizen could sue an American media company for a defamatory article published abroad. At the time, the decision was described as “a devastating blow to freedom of speech online”, potentially forcing publishers to censor them. In the United States, the law was later passed to make such a foreign defamation decision unenforceable.

But with this new decision, Australian residents can go after international media companies that have offices outside the United States for any comments made on their social media pages.

“The concern is that this is making Australia a magnet for international defamation disputes,” said Matt Collins, an Australian lawyer and defamation expert.

Even before Australia’s top court supported Mr Voller, the young man suing the media outlets, his argument was valid in a lower court and had already been felt across the country. Last year, the owner of a community Facebook page for an affluent Sydney suburb shut down the page after receiving a message. threat of defamation lawsuit stems from a comment someone made about a rival group.

Mr Collins worries that similar lawsuits will be brought by those hoping to distort public discourse on certain issues.

“The best journalism and commentary in the public interest is often defamatory and controversial,” he said. “This decision clearly cools the freedom to discuss these issues on these online platforms.”

Mr. Voller defended his case. Now 24, he’s got apologized to the public for his crimes took it down Child custody, including assault, robbery, and car theft. He stated that both the length of the child’s detention and the rumors circulating about him harmed his mental health.

Mr Voller, an Indigenous man who is now a youth justice campaigner, said the court’s decision will help protect vulnerable people in his community from the kind of abuse they are exposed to online.

“Some of the comments made me feel like suicide,” she said. “I am doing the right thing if I make people think about how to limit these things from happening to other people in the future.”