In Australia, the country’s highest court ruled that media companies are liable for people’s comments under articles on Facebook. As a result, CNN states it will no longer distribute content on the social media platform in Australia.
CNN did try to continue posting on Facebook in the country as it asked the platform’s tech firm if it would “support CNN and other publishers by disabling the comment functionality on their platform in Australia.”
Furthermore, a CNN spokesperson acknowledged in a statement that Facebook “chose not to” help them regarding this matter.
“We are disappointed that Facebook, once again, has failed to ensure its platform is a place for credible journalism and productive dialogue around current events among its users,” the CNN spokesperson said.
Facebook allows people and publishers with pages to turn off comments to their posts or otherwise limit the capacity for people to comment to chosen pages and profiles.
However, CNN requested a feature that allows a page-wide setting to turn off comments in Australia. Instead, Facebook gave directions for how the media organization can disable comments post by post.
With Facebook no helping and the high courts in Australia not on their side, CNN decided the best decision was to stop posting content.
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
