Facebook admins beware, you could be held liable

YOU may need to think twice before becoming a Facebook administrator as you could be held liable for prosecution if a person within the group makes an offensive comment. Concerns have been raised about social media and how easily hate messages circulated can trigger racial and religious tension in an area.

Northglen News recently spoke to Verlie Oosthuizen, an attorney and partner at Shepstone & Wylie (Durban) about the difficulties faced by a group of administrators on social media platforms. Verlie specialises in employment law litigation in all forms and has developed further practice areas in Social Media Law and data protection compliance.

1. If comments are (or may deemed to be) racist, sexist, discriminatory based on religion, culture, sexual preference etc are made on a FB group page, can the admin be held liable?

“There is case law to the effect that an administrator can be held liable for defamatory content and that they have an obligation to remove content which is defamatory or discriminatory. There are obviously limitations to this dependent on the facts of the case, however, the administrator of a private Facebook group would be well advised to keep a very close eye on the content published there,” she said.

2. ‘Anything posted online is considered to be ‘published’ and is therefore not the same as you expressing your opinion in the pub or among friends’-is this true?

“Publication requires that the utterance, whether oral or written, is made to more than one person. Therefore, publication as understood in terms of defamation law, can occur at a pub or among friends if you are with more than one person. However, the difference with the online posting is that there is clear proof of the utterance and it is recorded and cached almost in perpetuity (forever). That post can be easily shared in its original form whereas a pub conversation (unless recorded) will not be.”

“‘Naming and shaming’ is particularly risky -it can infringe on someone’s right to privacy, can amount to harassment and can amount to defamation. It has become a favourite past time on social media and it is ill advised. It would be better to bring errant behaviour to the authorities or to any other applicable official before posting material on Facebook.”

3. What should an admin person do if they see such posts, should they block them or give them a warning by stating the rules and regulations of the page?

“The administrator of a group should post the rules of the group clearly as a starting point. If there is undesirable content posted which is contrary to the rules of the group then it should be removed and the user warned. If they transgress again they should be blocked.”

4. Is having a policy or Facebook group rules for protection enough?

“The policy and rules will certainly help but it will not absolve an administrator from responsibility if they do not actively monitor the contents of the posts in the group and react to transgressions.”

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