The High Court's failure to grasp the changing pace of online communications ... Court rulings wedded to outdated interpretation of "publication" ... Voller ... Defteros and Gutnick ... Threat to the utility of the search engine ... Tech platforms remain in their own orbit ... Commentary from Richard Ackland ... more
Category: Seminars, interviews & commentary
Matthew Lewis
Sydney barrister Matthew Lewis takes our questions as he wings to England and Wales ... Authentic rarebit beckons ... Working from Doughty St ... The virtual world ... Reservations about the new public interest defence ... Time will tell ... more
Voller considerations
Liability for publication ... Invitation to comment gives rise to an intention to publish ... High Court casts doubt on Supreme Court dicta on innocent dissemination ... Limitation of liability underway ... A role for concerns notices and serious harm test ... Professor David Rolph comments ... more
A comparative study of court information
Study from the University of Sussex ... The quality of justice systems in three common law countries ... Transparency, innovation and independence ... The impact of federal, state and territory jurisdictional and resource differences in Australia ... Access to information ... Inconsistencies ... Suppression orders ... Anna Kretowicz reports ... more
Defamation and the media: fresh data
Updated dataset ... Graphs and charts tracking defamation claims for the 12 years to the end of 2020 ... Leading judges and their performances ... Major categories of plaintiffs ... Media wins and losses ... Exploding damages ... Federal Court assumes favourite forum status ... Janek Drevikovsky draws on the Gazette's case reports for this analysis ... more
The changing landscape of defamation law
Defamation law and the internet ... ANU defamation colloquium ... The challenges posed by technology, post-truth politics and populism ... Reforms in Ontario ... Matt Collins QC on the new contextual truth and opportunities for defendants ... Serious harm test ... Foreign intermediaries and enforcement of court orders ... Janek Drevikovsky reports ... more
“Vigilante journalism” keeps the bastards on their toes
Misplaced and cowardly attacks on investigative work by Four Corners, the Nine newspapers ... The QAnon story ... Christian Porter and Ben Roberts-Smith cases ... Political spoofs and satires also under threat ... Michael Douglas comments ... more
The mysterious case of the vanishing jury trial
Defamation cases and juries ... A study of what has happened to juries and jury verdicts since the Uniform Defamation Acts ... Juries overall preference for plaintiffs ... Whither defamation juries ... An endangered species ... Data report from Janek Drevikovsky ... more
Defamation lawyers critique new law
Stop the current reform agenda ... Briefing paper from defamation lawyers ... Complaints about increased costs, delays ... New public interest defence for the media unhelpful for plaintiffs and defendants ... Irresponsible journalists will be emboldened ... Aggravated damages should be untethered ... Juries out ... Let the Commonwealth cover the field ... Janek Drevikovsky reports ... more
Defamation and the internet
AGs discussion paper on defamation reforms for the internet ... Liability of intermediaries ... "Dumb pipes" ... What is a "publisher"? ... Proposed immunities ... Takedown orders ... Protections for complaints about criminal conduct ... Janek Drevikovski reports ... more
Dismantling the immunity
Tech platforms aggravated "the steal" ... Trump de-platformed over democratic violations ... Consequences for social media platforms ... White House threat to section 230 Communications Decency Act ... Consistent global approach to "responsible" content ... Patrick George reviews social media's post-Trump world ... more
Tech companies – give and take
De-platforming a president ... What does it mean for the "public square" ... The law, the policy and the power ... Reasonable points to support the conservative outcry ... Even better points in favour of tech companies restraining an attempted coup d'état ... Michael Douglas presents the "correct opinion" ... more