Updated 4 October: Facebook has taken down several of the contentious "hate" pages after days of repeated requests from the Victoria police. A few remain, but these are thought to have gained less attention and "ilkes" from the public. A lawyer for the Australian newspaper theHerald Sun responded to the news with an article urging people to "trust the jury", saying evidence put forward at a future trial will have "much more of an impact than a vague memory of something read many months earlier… something written by an unknown person about things they're probably guessing at".
Facebook is defying Australian law enforcers and refusing to take down a "hate" page that attacks an accused murderer and rapist.
According to Australian contempt law, media outlets should not publish information that could feasibly prejudice the jurors or judge on an ongoing case. Similar to the UK Contempt of Court Act, the law was originally designed to limit the information published by news agencies, however today it's relevant and applicable across social networks.
The case in question is that of Irish expatriate and Australian Broadcasting Corporation employee Jill Meagher, who went missing after leaving a bar in Melbourne in September 2012. The search for Meagher was bolstered by a social media campaign that attracted more than 100,000 likes, and one week later her body was uncovered 40km north-west of Melbourne. The accused, 41-year-old Adrian Bayley, apparently led police to the body.
Since this time, "hate" pages have been set up detailing information about Bayley and inciting anger towards him. As passionately as people feel about the case, Victoria police and even Meagher's husband have appealed to the public to be "mindful" of negative comments that "may hurt legal proceedings". Contempt law is designed to give defendants a fair trial, and if the criteria is not met it could conceivably lead to a case being dismissed or cause lengthy delays as new jurors are convened. Facebook has, however, so far refused to take down the dozen or so pages (one of which calls for Bayley's execution and has received more than 44,000 likes). The social network told Wired.co.uk, "We take our statement of rights and responsibilities very seriously and react quickly to remove reported content that violates our policies and also to restrict access to content in a country, where we are advised that it violates local law. While we do not comment on individual requests or cases, we can confirm that we are still in contact with the local law enforcement in Victoria." According to a spokesperson for the company, Facebook's legal team has to first investigate the case to see whether removal or restricted local access is appropriate.
Victoria's police chief commissioner Ken Lay acknowledged the vital role social media played in the search for Meagher, but commented, "We've all got a social responsibility. Facebook is part of our community and I would have thought that it would have only been reasonable.
"We've got to remember that no matter how horrible this crime is, this gentleman has got to be afforded a fair trial. It's not for Facebook pages or anyone else to be taking justice into their own hands."
On the police force's own Facebook page, a statement reads, "Victoria Police is aware of the existence of a number of Facebook pages inciting hateful activity and offensive or threatening comments in relation to the accused in the Gillian (Jill) Meagher investigation. Any pages or posts that appear to be in breach of Victorian contempt laws will be reported to the E-Crime Squad for investigation."
The post has already received 701 likes and 223 comments, with some accusing the police of attempting to ban free speech.
One key issue related to the contempt law here is use of images which, according to the police, could be troublesome in influencing the jurors "if identification is likely to be an issue at the trial". By this logic, news outlets such as the Australian may also have to answer some questions. In a recent article published online, the news source prints an image of the defendant (albeit shielding his face) and recounts details of his "troubled past". It is a practice that is all too common, with even the authorities falling foul on occasion, as was the case most recently when police revealed too much detail in a press conference about the murder of two Manchester officers.
A spokesman for the Victorian Attorney-General Robert Clark said in an interview with ABC TV that he was seeking a ''co-ordinated, national approach'' to the challenge posed by social media networks in cases such as these, while Premier of Victoria Ted Baillieutold ABC radio he was considering asking the Victorian Law Reform Commission to look into amending current legislature to directly address social media.
''Ultimately you've got to say what are the laws meant to do," commented Catharine Lumby, director of the Journalism and Media Research Centre at the University of New South Wales. "They're meant to protect the right of the accused to a fair trial and the right of a victim not to have an aborted trial... and, if that's what we want to preserve, then the Australian Law Reform Commission or a relevant entity should be charged with a review of how we best do that in the online and social media era.''
This is not the first time Facebook has crossed Australian authorities. In August the social media network was forced to do a u-turn on a page portraying Aborigines in a derogatory manner, referring to it as "controversial humour" before eventually taking it down. Aboriginal elder Ian Hunter commented it was not humour was the problem, but the anonymous posters carrying a hidden and racist agenda.
Facebook has also angered UK and US activists in the past, with its refusal to take downpages joking about rape, which attracted alleged confessions to sexual assault crimes. In this instance, the page did not breach law and incite hatred, however, and fell into the freedom of speech category.
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