Dear AASRNers,

Many of you might have followed the recent judicial ruling regarding “comments” on Facebook, as a result of which CNN Australia has disabled its Facebook page, The Guardian Australia has turned off its comments function, and multiple politicians and public personalities have done the same. The ruling opens up organisations and communities with Facebook pages to being sued for potentially defamatory comments made on their pages. Given that we are living in extremely fraught times, with escalating issues around surveillance and speech, the AASRN is taking a pause on open conversations in order to protect the integrity of the network and the safety of its members. All comments and posts on our AASRN Facebook group will therefore temporarily pause, effective immediately. When we started, we were a couple of hundred people: now the membership in our Facebook site stands at 1000+. This is a large number for us to moderate comments, given that all the moderators undertake this labour of love on our own time. AASRN does not have the resources to challenge legal action against potentially defamatory comments made in the group. As the situation is an evolving one, we will take stock, and return to opening up comments at a later stage, depending on developments. We are hoping membership will understand and support our decision which has not been taken lightly. If necessary, we will consider alternative forms of communication in the future, however, we hope the pause is a temporary measure.

If anyone has expertise on this issue and would like to advise the Board or if you have any comments about our decision to pass along to us, I’m happy to collate your emails and share them with the Board. Please email: asianozstudies@gmail.com. You can also visit our wordpress blogspace https://aasrn.wordpress.com/ and follow AASRN on twitter: https://twitter.com/aasrn for further communications.

For those who might like to know more about the issue, here are a few recent news-stories:
1. What new defamation ruling means for your social media: https://www.artslaw.com.au/defamation-and-the-voller-case/
2. Facebook pages fall quiet as administrators fear legal action over defamatory comments: https://www.abc.net.au/…/facebook-pages-are…/100501800
3. You’ve decided to quit Facebook. Here’s how to migrate your online life elsewhere.: https://www.washingtonpost.com/…/leave-facebook…/
4. More public figures expected to turn off Facebook comments after Australian defamation ruling: https://www.theguardian.com/…/high-court-ruling-on…
5. Missing Apostrophe in Facebook Post Lands a Man in Defamation Court: https://www.nytimes.com/…/facebook-post-missing…