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First test of defamation public interest defence – where to from here for the media?

The first decision applying the new public interest defence to defamation, introduced under s 29A of the Defamation Act 2005 (NSW) in July 2021, has now been handed down in the Federal Court.

Ben Roberts-Smith: A cautionary tale for would-be defamation applicants and a victory for the truth defence

After the biggest and most expensive defamation trial in Australian history, a judge has found media reports that the country's most decorated soldier Ben Roberts-Smith committed war crimes, assault and acts of bullying in Afghanistan were substantially true.

Google smacked with $715,000 defamation payout to former NSW deputy premier – how the judge reached his decision and why it may not be the end of the matter

Former deputy Premier of NSW, John Barilaro, has been awarded $715,000 in damages and interest by the Federal Court of Australia after he sued Google for defamation over two videos published on YouTube by ‘friendlyjordies’.[1]

High Court rules Google is not a publisher in defamation case over hyperlink

In a major win for Google, the High Court has found that the search engine is not liable as a publisher of websites to which it provides hyperlinks in search results for the purposes of defamation law.

First application of the “serious harm test” by an Australian court in defamation case

The first decision given by an Australian court applying the “serious harm” test since amendments to defamation legislation were introduced on 1 July 2021 was handed down late last month in an interlocutory judgment and published today.

Anti-troll or anti-platform? New Commonwealth defamation legislation proposed to deal with social media services

If passed, the Social Media (Anti-Trolling) Bill 2021 (Cth) will significantly expand the liability of social media platforms for defamatory posts by their users, deny the platforms recourse to the innocent dissemination defence and make access to a new safe-harbour defence conditional on unmasking anonymous end-users (which raises complex practical and ideological issues, with implications for all web users).

Dutton awarded damages for defamatory tweet, but will lose on costs

In the recent decision of Dutton v Bazzi [2021] FCA 1474 (24 November 2021), White J awarded Defence Minister Peter Dutton $35,000 in damages for defamation in relation to a tweet published by an individual which said “Peter Dutton is a rape apologist” and shared a link to an article in The Guardian.

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