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.'"
Why should anyone share responsibility for what you say? In the same vein, should the local government, the builder company and the maker of a cardboard box be responsible for anything I shout while standing on said box on a street corner? Is London responsible for whatever anyone says on Speakers' Corner?
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
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.
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.
What kind of twisted reasoning could possibly lead you to that conclusion?
I disagree wholeheartedly but I'm open minded enough to argue WHY you think anyone should be responsible for someone else's comments.
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?
"In the same vein, should the local government, the builder company and the maker of a cardboard box be responsible for anything I shout while standing on said box on a street corner?"
Whilst lying on the ground as a result of trying to stand on the cardbox box, will you think someone other than yourself responsible for your fall ?
Why should anyone share responsibility for what you say?
Why should anyone profit from what you say?
I fail to see how the company profited from derogatory slurs...
In the same vein, should the local government, the builder company and the maker of a cardboard box be responsible for anything I shout while standing on said box on a street corner?
Yes, to the extent each party knowingly continues to benefit from it.
The whole point in government, being a body representing the people, is that it holds a degree of responsibility for what the people do. Bad government implies bad citizenry, and vice versa.
It doesn't, not in the slightest. The government holds responsibility for its actions towards its electors, but not for all the actions of its people. Otherwise, I could sue your state for any given thing, like trying to slander me. Bad government implies bad politicians, but it has nothing to do with the populace in general.
Is London responsible for whatever anyone says on Speakers' Corner?
Of course. Try spending a minute calling everyone around you to "kill dirty niggers and kikes, especially that Jamal Rosenberg guy at number 27" and see what happens.
Most political speech is necessary, though - which is why the government is responsible for protecting rather than prohibiting it.
That's simple hate speech, prosecutable under law. Connecting this to the article, someone targeted by the "hate speech" on the page could file a complaint and have the court investigate it, but certainly not Facebook or the company itself (who was not a target).
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
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.
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.
Well now you've got a way to blackmail them back. If they force you to 'like' their page, just hop over and post a comment describing how their product is the perfect way to give people the energy needed to oppress minorities (or whatever it is that will get them in trouble). Then file a complaint with the appropriate government agency. Be sure to send a note to the company letting them know that you'll stop if they stop.
What you think "opressing minorities" would be considered a negative in australia. Boy do you have some things to learn about this messed up country.....
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Then please do quote the applicable clause from the Facebook terms and conditions.
Social responsibility is not legally enforceable. Not following it may mean you're an asshole, and people may not use your services. This certainly doesn't seem to be the case with Facebook, so I think it's safe to say people do not give a shit about social responsibility.
As for who takes responsibility? The commenter, naturally. Again, who takes responsibility for something you say on Speakers' Corner, who gets arrested for hate speech? You or Boris Johnson?
Hyperbole: I use it liberally!
No reason, just curious...
It's funny how you smug insulting Americans know so little of your own history. Australia only became a penal colony because England could no longer use America for that purpose.
Because that way everyone has to wait 12 hours to post a comment, rendering realtime conversation impossible, and facebook have to run a (maybe impossibly) massive moderation team to process every single post, whereas the other way they have a much smaller team that just responds to complaints/flags from other users.
(1.21 gigawatts) / (88 miles per hour) = 30 757 874 newtons
I think it's more like a drinking establishment getting shut down due to what some delinquent teenager spray paints on the front of their building. At least the bar would have an option to stop and prevent entry to troublemakers before hand. With Facebook particularly, there is no way to prevent someone from 'liking' and posting on a business wall until they have done something that lets you determine they are troublemakers, which is after-the-fact.
If Facebook were to add a 'poster quality' feature by which business sites can add some sort of 'troll rating' to a person and use that to predetermine if they can just like and comment willy-nilly, then it could be more fair. That's totally just going to be abused and gamed somehow, though.
But I digress, it is the responsibility of the prosecuting agency to manage what is and isn't objectionable content, not that of the people who are the victims of said content.
If the only way you can accept an assertion is by faith, then you are conceding that it can't be taken on its own merits
Social web sites are a communication medium.
Actually, they're more of a publishing and advertising medium. You can use them for communication (ie sending private messages), but you can't compare hosting a public message on a social website to telephone communications. By that logic you could say television broadcasters are protected by the same common-carrier rules as telephone companies. That's just ridiculous.
-- Let us endeavor so to live that when we pass even the undertaker shall be sorry. -- M. Twain