Novak Djokovic court case encounters numerous technology issues

Novak Djokovic’s visa hearing has been anything but smooth sailing on the technology side, with a number of issues impacting viewers from around the world.

The reported image displayed on a Microsoft Teams link.

It’s the court case that has got the world gripped, but it’s been anything but smooth sailing for the federal court’s tech boffins.

As a top lawyer raised concern of “zero open justice”, the Federal Circuit and Family Court’s hearing of Serbian superstar Novak Djokovic’s visa appeal has been plagued by technical issues, global spamming and pornographic material.

With no parties actually in court due to Covid restrictions and protocols, the hearing is being live-streamed.

The initial stages of the hearing were delayed as the old link for the stream was swamped, before it was overrun by individuals who were clearly only online in an attempt to hijack proceedings.

It was reported that an old Microsoft Teams link displaying the stream had been overwhelmed by “people claiming to be members of the Serbian press” who were “intermittently blasting folk music and memes”.

FOLLOW THE OUR LIVE COVERAGE OF THE VISA FIGHT

Pornographic images appeared on the live vision.

The stream later appeared to have been taken over and was displaying pornographic content.

The Microsoft Teams link was last week issued by the court as the platform to watch the case, but that was changed at the weekend to a streaming page to allow more people to watch the drama unfold.At no time was the case running on the Microsoft Teams platform, despite the link being live and allowing people to make comments and share content.

Once hearings got underway, the stream was plagued by dropouts for more than an hour as demand for the link swelled, with the judge reminding those who are tuning in that they must mute their microphones was imperative.

It led to a number of illegal bootleg streams of the hearing, with more than 20,000 people watching the courtroom drama playout via a tennis podcast’s YouTube channel, despite the court reminding members of the public on several occasions that any recording, photography, or broadcasting is “not permitted”.

One Melbourne radio station quashed plans it had to live-stream the hearing via its app at the last minute on Monday morning.

Novak Djokovic had his court hearing today. Picture: AFP Images

Thomson Geer media lawyer Justin Quill, representing a handful of media organisations in the court case, said that technology can be great for open justice because the public doesn’t have to rely on journalists physically sitting in court.

“But the risk is high that if the technology fails you have zero open justice, you have secret justice,” Mr Quill said.

“And in a case like this, that can lead to rumours, speculation and innuendo about what’s really going on.

“That sentiment comes directly from a precedence about the importance of maintaining open justice even when to do so causes great difficulty.”

Mr Quill had sought leave to appear in the case, but had also been unable to access the link for 45 minutes just after 1pm.

He said given the case is playing out “on the global stage”, that “we really ought to be going above and beyond the bare minimum in terms of open justice”.

The court has re-issued its stream link which is now appearing on YouTube, which allows for a far greater audience.