Recently, the Australian Federal court discovered that Google, the company that owns Youtube, allowed money on two videos defaming the leader of New South Wales - John Barilaro.
Since being posted in late 2020, both videos have reached nearly 800,000 views. This ruling raised the issue of the technology company's responsibility for defamation on social media.
In addition, the person who posted the video, Jordan Shanks, repeatedly accused Mr. Barilaro of being corrupt without any evidence. According to judge Steve Rares, these words were no different from hostile statements.
This is one of the first cases where Google has been seen as a defaming content publisher through the Youtube platform. Previously, this giant search engine was also responsible for this behavior by providing links that led to articles on search results.
By continuing to publish Shank's content, Judge Rare said that Google violated its policy of protecting public figures from being unfairly targeted, causing the former politician to leave his position early and suffer mental damage. Mr. Barilano left politics after 1 year of Shank posting videos.
Australia is currently reviewing defamation laws from online platforms to decide whether to hold Google accountable for storing defamatory content. Other Internet giants and Google are arguing about why they cant censor all posts.
Jordan Shanks has more than 625,000 subscribers on Youtube and 346,000 followers on Facebook. Last year, Shanks and Mr. Barilano had an arrangement and Shanks had to edit the video and compensate the former politician with 100,000 AUD. However, the content creator continued to attack Mr. Barilaro publicly and continuously teased him on Facebook posts.
Mr. Barilano added to the reporters: "Now for me, apologization or compensation is meaningless, I need the court to hold Google accountable and delete them."
