Internet troll pays the toll as Court awards $875,000 damages in social media defamation claim

Recently the Federal Court of Australia awarded damages in the sum of $875,000 against Karen Brewer, a New Zealand based online conspiracy theorist, for publishing a series of defamatory posts and videos on Facebook earlier this year.

The posts published by Brewer claimed that the applicants and their charitable organisation were “participants in a secretive criminal network and involved in child sexual abuse”. The court found that these claims were grossly untrue and “wholly indefensible”.

The court considered that the applicants’ ‘long lives of decency and good deeds’, coupled with the incoherency of Brewer’s messages, made it likely that ‘only the most suggestable individuals’ may think less of the applicants as a result of Brewer’s posts. However, it was noted that social media gave Brewer a platform to reach those such individuals and that there was a real risk of damage being suffered to the applicants’ reputations within the community.

Unlike some recently well-publicised defamation cases such as those involving Geoffrey Rush and Rebel Wilson, the compensation in this case was not based on future economic loss (eg loss of future earnings due to reputational damage), but rather non-economic loss suffered by the applicants. These losses included those for personal distress and hurt, and an award for aggravated damages, which are only awarded in exceptional circumstances. The Court found that exceptional circumstances existed, including the fact that the posts were unjustifiable, they were repetitive to the extent that the applicant believed that Brewer had a vendetta against her, and that Brewer was found to be obsessive, defiant and unlikely to be deterred by the Court proceedings from publishing further defamatory posts concerning the applicants.

As can be seen by this case, defamation can take many forms and can have substantial financial consequences on the offender. This is once again a warning to all social media users of the risks of publishing defamatory material online. It is also a timely reminder to employers of the importance of having a workplace social media policy which provides clear guidelines and expectations to employees concerning their social media use.

If you require specific advice in relation to a social media defamation dispute, please contact our team to make an appointment.