{"id":7116,"date":"2022-08-24T07:03:03","date_gmt":"2022-08-24T07:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/?p=7116"},"modified":"2023-06-01T02:31:25","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T02:31:25","slug":"defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/","title":{"rendered":"Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4>Following the recent High Court\u2019s decision in <em>Fairfax Media Publications Pty Ltd v Voller<\/em> and <em>Google LLC v Defteros<\/em>, draft amendments were released to Australia\u2019s defamation laws, relating to intermediary liability (as stage 2).<\/h4>\n<p>The key recommendations\/proposed amendments relate to:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li>A conditional exemption from defamation liability for mere conduits, caching and storage services;<\/li>\n<li>A conditional exemption from defamation liability for search engines when they are providing standard search engine functions;<\/li>\n<li>Two alternative models for a defence for digital intermediaries, being:<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<ul>\n<li>Model A \u2013 A defence for digital intermediaries that requires them to have a simple complaints notice process and upon receipt of a complaints notice, to provide (with consent) identifying information about the poster to the complainant or to take steps to prevent access to the material, which were reasonable in the circumstances (<strong>safe habour defence<\/strong>); or<\/li>\n<li>Model B \u2013 A defence for digital intermediaries, which requires them to have a simple complaints notice process and upon receipt of a complaint, to take steps to prevent access to the material, which were reasonable in the circumstances (<strong>innocent dissemination defence<\/strong>).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ol start=\"4\">\n<li>Whether the Commonwealth Government should consider whether defamation law should be carved out from the operation of s.235(1) of <em>Online Safety Act 2021 (Cth), <\/em>which deals with the liability of Australian hosting providers and ISPs for certain content online.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The recommendations propose that a <strong>digital intermediary<\/strong> be defined as <em>\u201ca person, other than an author, origination or poster of the matter, who provides an online service in connection with the publication of the matter.<\/em>\u201d Thus, it would also cover social media platforms, review websites and forum administrators, in addition to search engines and ISPs.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, the recommendations propose to give the Courts power to make an order against non-parties to prevent online access to defamatory matter.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed amendments raise issues as to how they will work with the current statutory scheme and existing common law position relating to search engines. The reforms may not provide a complete defamation immunity for digital intermediaries in respect to all the business activity, depending on how they are drafted in final form. For example, the proposed exemption for liability for search engines is <em>\u201climited to search results generated using the search engine from search terms inputted by the user of the engine <u>rather than terms automatically suggested\u00a0 by the engine.<\/u>\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<p>It will be interesting to see how the final proposed amendments look at the close of written submission on 9 September 2022.<\/p>\n<p><em>Should you have any defamation enquiries, please contact <a href=\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/about\/danielle-snell\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Danielle Snell<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/about\/robert-mcgirr\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Robert McGirr<\/a> of Elit Lawyers on (03) 9098 8646.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Draft amendments have been released to Australia\u2019s defamation laws, relating to intermediary liability (as stage 2).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14,18],"tags":[],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.6 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms - Elit Lawyers<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms - Elit Lawyers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Draft amendments have been released to Australia\u2019s defamation laws, relating to intermediary liability (as stage 2).\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Elit Lawyers\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-08-24T07:03:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-06-01T02:31:25+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Niki Patterson\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Niki Patterson\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Niki Patterson\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#\/schema\/person\/37e838fc21ef5ea46909123eaef01b80\"},\"headline\":\"Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms\",\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-24T07:03:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-06-01T02:31:25+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/\"},\"wordCount\":428,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#organization\"},\"articleSection\":[\"Media &amp; Defamation\",\"News\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/\",\"name\":\"Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms - Elit Lawyers\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2022-08-24T07:03:03+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2023-06-01T02:31:25+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/\",\"name\":\"Elit Lawyers\",\"description\":\"Just another WordPress site\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#organization\",\"name\":\"Elit Lawyers by McGirr and Snell\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/LOGO-3.svg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/LOGO-3.svg\",\"width\":136,\"height\":63,\"caption\":\"Elit Lawyers by McGirr and Snell\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"}},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#\/schema\/person\/37e838fc21ef5ea46909123eaef01b80\",\"name\":\"Niki Patterson\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/411ba9c637c81bab85fa4daf587d9d2f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/411ba9c637c81bab85fa4daf587d9d2f?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Niki Patterson\"}}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms - Elit Lawyers","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms - Elit Lawyers","og_description":"Draft amendments have been released to Australia\u2019s defamation laws, relating to intermediary liability (as stage 2).","og_url":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/","og_site_name":"Elit Lawyers","article_published_time":"2022-08-24T07:03:03+00:00","article_modified_time":"2023-06-01T02:31:25+00:00","author":"Niki Patterson","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Niki Patterson","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/"},"author":{"name":"Niki Patterson","@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#\/schema\/person\/37e838fc21ef5ea46909123eaef01b80"},"headline":"Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms","datePublished":"2022-08-24T07:03:03+00:00","dateModified":"2023-06-01T02:31:25+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/"},"wordCount":428,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Media &amp; Defamation","News"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/","url":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/","name":"Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms - Elit Lawyers","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#website"},"datePublished":"2022-08-24T07:03:03+00:00","dateModified":"2023-06-01T02:31:25+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/defamation-news-stage-2-defamation-law-reforms\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Defamation News: Stage 2 Defamation law reforms"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#website","url":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/","name":"Elit Lawyers","description":"Just another WordPress site","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#organization","name":"Elit Lawyers by McGirr and Snell","url":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/LOGO-3.svg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/LOGO-3.svg","width":136,"height":63,"caption":"Elit Lawyers by McGirr and Snell"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#\/schema\/person\/37e838fc21ef5ea46909123eaef01b80","name":"Niki Patterson","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/411ba9c637c81bab85fa4daf587d9d2f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/411ba9c637c81bab85fa4daf587d9d2f?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Niki Patterson"}}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7116"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7116"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7524,"href":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7116\/revisions\/7524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elitlaw.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}