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

Australian judge finds media companies have a responsibility to ensure defamatory remarks are not posted on social media

• Analysis: Has an Australian judge just broken Facebook for publishers?

Major media companies and Facebook are scrambling to come to grips with a landmark ruling by an Australian judge that found publishers are legally responsible for pre-moderating comments on the social media site.

On Monday in the New South Wales supreme court judge Stephen Rothman found that commercial entities, including media companies, could be regarded as the publishers of comments made on Facebook, and as such had a responsibility to ensure defamatory remarks were not posted in the first place.