Facebook needs curbing, says Kerry Stokes

Kerry Stokes has called for laws preventing internet firms from publishing defamatory allegations with impunity.

Seven West Media’s Kerry Stokes.

The chairman of Seven West Media, Kerry Stokes, has called on the federal government to introduce laws preventing Facebook and other internet media companies from publishing defamatory and false allegations with impunity, saying current regulations are unworkable.

Mr Stokes, who recently concluded a four-year defamation case against an online blogger, said current law made it almost impossible for anyone to remove false and slanderous allegations from social media because companies such as Facebook brushed aside complaints by insisting they were not publishers.

“Everyone is vulnerable to nefarious material being published about them, especially when it is republished in traditional media outlets, and there appears to be no safety net,” Mr Stokes said.

“It is time for governments to act to protect their citizens, creating similar laws that traditional publishers and broadcasters comply with every day.”

His comments join a groundswell of concern about internet news media in the wake of revelations that Russia may have directly influenced the US presidential election and the UK Brexit vote by planting false stories and rumours in millions of social media accounts.

Last year the government ordered the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission to investigate whether internet companies such as Google and Facebook were abusing their market power and influence. Overseas, the backlash against tech companies now includes several former executives from Facebook and Google, who say the unchecked spread of false and defamatory information on social media is poisoning social discourse.

In 2014 Mr Stokes issued defamation proceedings against a Sydney blogger who published extraordinary corruption allegations against business, legal and political figures on his website and social media pages. Judges have described the man’s claims as baseless and scandalous and issued suppression orders, but he has defied court orders to remove the articles, despite a jail sentence last year for contempt.

Mr Stokes declined to talk about the case, which is understood to have cost him $200,000 in legal fees, and which concluded last month when a judge granted a permanent injunction against publication of the allegations. But he said current laws allowed companies such as Facebook to publish “defamatory, inaccurate and sometimes dangerous material” with impunity, and legal action was often futile because the material was on overseas servers beyond the jurisdiction of court orders.

“These servers or platforms often brush aside complaints based on the belief that they are just a carriage provider and not the publisher,” he said. “In addition, when action is taken in court there is no redress, as the offending publishers often have no assets and therefore are not at risk for their damaging actions.”

On Wednesday Queensland police reportedly arrested another blogger and online activist, Peter Priest, 37, of Noosa, who claims on Facebook he is being held as an involuntary psychiatric patient at Nambour General Hospital.

Mr Priest, who calls himself Eliahi Priest, operates a number of sites on which he campaigns against the Safe Schools curriculum and disseminates conspiracy theories about Australian government involvement in drug trafficking and terrorism.

A video posted on his Facebook page on Wednesday appeared to show four police officers arresting him at his workplace.