Slashdot Mirror
Australian Agency Rules Facebook Pages Responsible For Comments
jibjibjib writes "The Australian reports that brands in Australia could be forced to abandon their social media campaigns, after the Advertising Standards Bureau ruled that they were responsible for comments posted on their pages. According to the article, the ASB is poised to release a report attacking Carlton & United Breweries for derogatory comments posted on one of their official Facebook pages, despite CUB monitoring and removing those comments twice daily. Legal expert John Swinson commented on the decision, saying 'You simply can no longer have two-way conversations with your customers.'"
I am an advocate of organisations having a degree of responsibility for anything they intend to profit from - so I think Facebook should be party responsible for everything posted on Facebook, and organisations with Facebook pages should be partly responsible for anything posted on their pages.
It is not as if they're going to spread the gains they receive to "the people" when commeting/behaviour goes in their favour.
The laws of Western countries are very much set up to capitalise profit and socialise losses.
"The Australian reports" only if you define the term very loosely.
I am an Aussie and I am glad if this will get these companies off facebook and run their own services. I am sick and tired of companies blackmailing their customers for a "like" to get their advertising.
Apparently the humour of some posts has gone right over the heads of the Advertising Standards Bureau.
You see, the VB brand has a bit of a bogan image, ie redneck, lower socioeconomic. So when the posters mentioned sluts and poofs, they are not mocking women and homosexuals, but the brand and the stereotypical people perceived to drink it.
This is the same country that holds the owner of a shopping centre liable if someone slips on a chip, and the area isn't cleaned every 20mins.
http://www.manningrivertimes.com.au/news/local/news/general/the-case-against-woolworths/2482031.aspx
Try "Australian Ads Body Rules Companies Responsible For Own Facebook Content"
When and in who's universe can anyone be responsible for anyone elses mindless rantings?
Oh sorry, welcome to the Orwellian Collective. It's quite sick, in fact not Quite, Very!
Hang onto your guns, independance and freedoms, Yanks, you may be the only hope, after the next election of course!
Nick from Oz.
P.S. Get your productivity sorted and debt, the world cannot afford a weak USA!
This is just the worst that comes out of courtrooms.
Think about it - you start a business, it doesn't even have to be big or anything, maybe you are giving advice, maybe you are selling toy airplanes, hell, maybe you are giving away toy airplanes (I don't know why I chose airplanes here), and somebody posts comments on your forum that are 'derogatory'.
Well those comments just may be derogatory, but how can the person hosting the forum be held responsible for derogatory comments made by other people?
What about /.? It's a business, after all, people are getting paid to run it, there are ads here (I think), so what would happen if /. was held personally responsible for all the derogatory shit that people spill here?
"Fuck nigger cocksucker dyke blow me." - so somebody leaves comments like that or whatever on a forum and all of a sudden a person or a business hosting it is responsible and is liable to all sorts of lawsuits.
THAT stifles innovation. THAT prevents innovative people from starting businesses that rely on new ideas how to promote their business, it sure HELPS the monopolies (and that's how monopolies are created - with government interference in the market in the first place, and this IS government interference with the market, and this will prevent innovation and stifle competition and help monopolies).
ALL basic freedoms are important to have a vibrant economy, freedom of speech, association, private property ownership, speedy trial, not being thrown in jail without a trial, not being harassed by the government, etc.
Take one of those freedoms out and you stop the economy from innovating, and this is important. Think about the Mars mission with Curiosity. Is it important to have a vibrant economy to be able to freaking afford a mission like that? Is Zimbabwe running a mission like that?
You can't handle the truth.
The problem is where does this end? What about forums like slashdot? What about grafitti on a building - where cleaning twice a day would be almost unheard of
No reason, just curious...
'You simply can no longer have two-way conversations with your customers.'" Idiot bogans aside, the truth of it really is that these companies don't like what the customer on the other end of the conversation is now able to say to them.
that Australia is still just a big dumb penal colony? (at least its "leaders". Getting as bad as the US)
You simply can no longer have two-way conversations with your customers.
You simply can no longer have public two-way conversations with your customers.
People are using the anonymous cover of Twitter to hide behind and post abusive and hateful, even threatening messages. This was highlighted last week by the arrest of a young man in England who posted about Olympic diver Tom Daley. There are increasingly louder calls for Twitter to censor the messages. Excellent article examining recent problem related to the Olympics; http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/pressure-grows-on-twitter-to-curb-abusive-trolls-8007756.html
Chaos maximizes locally around me.
Advertising Standards Bureau:
The Advertising Standards Bureau administers a national system of advertising self-regulation through the Advertising Standards Board and the Advertising Claims Board. The self-regulation system recognises that advertisers share a common interest in promoting consumer confidence in and respect for general standards of advertising.
Self regulation, eh? So the whole decision is effectively meaningless anyway. And if the Australian advertising world at large decides that it's a load of bollocks, then chances are the ASB will change its tune anyway. With it being pretty insane to label public comment on an "open" forum advertising
Alternatively, suppose I run a company newsletter, which is posted out, and includes customer commends, and someone submits a comment "ThunderBird89 is a dirty paedo, go torch his house with him in it". Could I reasonably claim that I have no responsibility? BTW, this isn't a rhetorical question - the whole area is horribly complicated.
If you make comments from your company's official letterhead, is your company responsible for your words?
YES.
Did anyone else read the headline as "Australian Rules Facebook"?
Sure, ya pansies have your Facebook with your "likes" and "pokes." In Australian Rules Facebook if we're fond of ya we stick crocs in your underwear drawer. Don't ask what we do when we DON'T like ya!"
What's strange about this is that the ASB are a self-regulated *COUGH* *COUGH* group from the advertisers which are infamous for dismissing complaints by the public. The scuttlebutt with self-regulation of advertisers, medical professionals, lawyers, anybody, is the hope that if you pretend to do the job yourself the government won't do it for you. Their investigations inevitably end with: "Further finding that the advertisement did not breach the Code on any other grounds, the Board dismissed the complaint."
;-)
But don't take my word for it. Their determinations are online here:
http://www.adstandards.com.au/casereports/determinations/standards?browse
There have been many stories published accusing the ASB of being biased towards advertisers:
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-04-29/advertisers-blamed-for-increasing-child/2701322
http://vimeo.com/2788853
http://mumbrella.com.au/asb-investigates-lynx-dry-ads-featuring-women-who-look-hot-wet-27383
http://www.abc.net.au/cgi-bin/common/printfriendly.pl?http://www.abc.net.au/pm/content/2008/s2287201.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3029145.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s2598826.htm
https://www.google.com/search?q="media+watch"+"advertising+standards"&site:abc.net.au
The crazy thing is the standards are voluntary so there is no penalty even if they do catch you out. Here they did catch Subway for passing off manufactured meat as fillet, but the penalty was, ummm... nothing. Subway said they would change the menus. That was it. (This article says it could be referred to the ACCC, but they are a statutory body and can do that anyway without the ASB. You can complain directly to the ACCC anyway. The ASB has the same legal status that you and your footie mates head out to a game.) http://www.ausfoodnews.com.au/2012/06/27/food-companies-asked-to-apply-for-government-money-2.html
Advertisers take advantage of the weak penalties by doing such bad taste ads they're bound to get reported and get a 6:30PM news story asking "Has XYZ gone too far with this sexy ad? stay tuned and we'll show you after the break." Most infamous was the blow jobs for shoes ads: http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/240602_s4.htm
So why on Earth has the ASB come down hard on Facebook? For a fervently pro-advertiser organisation this is quite weird. I doubt it's because they're suddenly "siding with the consumer". I think there is something more going on here. Perhaps it's because advertisers hate losing ad revenue while firms start advertising directly on the Internet? Perhaps this is an chance to scare wayward customers back into their arms?
And there is the punchline: The ASB has no power anyway, so despite the buzz this news story has created Carlton Breweries can flip them the bird and keep using Facebook. Must suck when Self-regulation comes back to bite you, eh, ASB?
then the company is responsible for what you say as an employee.
By your logic, Slashdot is (partly?) responsible for THIS comment? And yours? Where do you draw the line? Why should the fact that Slashdot (presumably) makes one off running the site make a difference, why the distinction whether it's for-profit or non-profit?
Can't speak for the OP, but I like the way the line is drawn in Franch law.
Websites are responsible for what gets published on them. Much like written print publications, they're expected to excercise editorial control. They distinguish between pre- vs post- moderation, however. If you pre-moderate comments, your ass is on the line -- always, and in full. If you post-moderate comments, your ass is on the line too, but the law is such that the author becomes responsible if you can identify him and proactively remove the offending material.
but growing
If I write a slur on your building, or your cardboard box, you're responsible for it! LOL!
"The complaint to the ASB claimed that the Facebook page breached alcohol advertising guidelines by connecting alcohol with social or sexual prowess and promoted irresponsible drinking and excessive consumption." Bummer my comment will be forgotten on /. Much like the actual content of the story. It's not about who'se responsible for the contents.
Imagine a cigarette company on FB letting kids talk about how cool it was. The court decided it wasn't in the public interest. Read the story.
You've got some mighty twisted logic there... if they're mocking the stereotypes, and those stereotypes are "sluts and poofs"... How are they *not* mocking women and homosexuals? That's like painting a target on a window and claiming that it's OK to heave rocks at it because "you were aiming at the target, not the window".
Between its official censorship and now this, does Australia actually practice a kind of quiet, democratic kind of authoritarianism?
Instead of posts going straight through, then being filtered twice a day why don't they push facebook to move to a submit, then approve model. Where people would submit posts whenever, then the company rep would filter/approve posts twice a day. Only then can you really claim that the company has any responsibility for what gets posted. Of course, companies won't be thrilled about having to approve posts, or accepting any kind of liability, but it seems pretty simple.
Hang on, did you get the chance to vet the comment before sending out the 'company newsletter'? Is this a physical or digital 'newsletter', generally the term 'newsletter' (to me anyway) describes a published piece of material that someone vetted before posting or sending out physically...so yeah you'd be responsible.
As an Australian, yes, definitely.
Why should anyone share responsibility for what you say?
If you are an official spokesperson for Company X, do you think that the company should bear no responsibility at all for what you say in acting out your duties are their spokesperson?
Remember, it's not Facebook that's being held responsible here. The decision merely states that corporate FB pages which push a product ought to be treated as advertising and be subject to the normal law as regards advertising. Thus a company advertising on FB can not, for example, make false claims about the product they are advertising. What is surprising perhaps is that the comments of third parties on those pages are being seen as forming part of the advert. The ASB seems to have some understanding of crowdsourcing. Who woulda thunk.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke
Spokespeople in their official role are a different matter altogether. What I'm driving it is the comments of third parties being considered part of the advertising, as you said. They are not, in my opinion, and the company pushing the advert should not be held responsible for what unknown people comment on its pages. comments should be owned wholly by the commenters, as they are the only ones who can take true responsibility for what they are saying.
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
I wrote that it was "surprising" that those commenting would, as it were, be conscripted as spokespeople for said advertiser. On reflection it really isn't. Instead it probably flows ineluctably from the legislative framework within which the board has to work. That is, there is may be no easy way for current advertising law to distinguish between the content provided by the company and that provided by the commenters. The finding that a corporate FB presence constitutes advertising, leads to the result that it is an advertisement in its entirety, and that the law regarding the decency and truthfulness of advertising content applies throughout. If the legislation were to be amended to allow such a distinction to be made, any amendment should take into consideration the possibility of shill comments. Not an easy one.
From a company's POV, the attractiveness of building a community around your brand in order to foster brand tribalism is obvious. And this decision really calls into question how this marketing technique can realistically be pursued in Australia. When the dust settles this decision may be seen to go not so much to the issue of free speech, but instead to the issue of how to best exploit the earning potential of social media.
Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions, than ruined by too confident a security. --Edmund Burke