By Alison Adair
A recent decision of the Federal Court, together with several recent rulings of the Advertising Standards Bureau (ASB), have highlighted the need for businesses to monitor their Facebook and Twitter pages to ensure any comments posted by consumers or third parties do not breach advertising code or consumer and defamation laws.
In a recent Federal Court decision a satisfied customer of a natural health treatment sold by Allergy Pathway (AP) posted on the wall of the AP Facebook fan page a glowing, somewhat exaggerated testimonial regarding the qualities and potential effect of the AP treatment. The testimonial was found to be a misrepresentation and, although AP was not responsible for the original publication, the Court found that AP had accepted responsibility once it knew of the publication and decided not to remove it. AP and its director each received a monetary penalty and AP was required to publish corrective advertisements.
After receiving an increasing number of complaints about material posted or published on the Facebook and Twitter pages of businesses, the Advertising Standards Bureau has determined that the Facebook page of a business is a "marketing communication tool over which the advertiser has a reasonable degree of control" and is therefore a communication covered by the Australian Association of National Advertisers Code of Ethics (the Code). In the circumstances, it found that the advertiser should monitor their relevant social media sites to ensure offensive material is removed within a reasonable timeframe.
The above determination was made following a complaint to the ASB about the Fosters VB Facebook page which contained posts from consumers or "fans" which included coarse language and sexual references. The ASB determined that several of the comments were discriminatory towards women, derogatory of homosexuals, contained inappropriate sexual references, obscene language and were a breach of the Code. Fosters agreed to remove the offending comments, implement regular monitoring and language filters and to remove any subsequently posted inappropriate comments.
Businesses are therefore advised to regularly monitor comments posted on their Facebook or Twitter pages and to remove them if they consider them to be a breach of the Code, or of consumer or defamation laws.
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