Instagram food fight: Court clarifies approach to social media defamation

• Published date: 28 October 2022
• Subject Matter: Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Media, Telecoms, IT, Entertainment, Libel & Defamation, Social Media
• Law Firm: O'Brien Criminal & Civil Solicitors
• Author: Ms Sarah Gore

In a decision handed down on an Instagram defamation case earlier this week, the District Court set clear guidelines for how the court must address social media defamation.

Last Monday, Her Honour Justice Gibson handed down a decision in relation to defamatory posts made on various Instagram videos.

Importantly, Her Honour addressed some important questions about determining publication, imputations and serious harm.

Click here for specific analysis of serious harm and permanent injunctions.

Food blogger eats words as Court orders him to pay $300,000 damages for Instagram defamation.

Issac Martin, who is better known by is handle @issac_eatsalot, was vindicated in the NSW District Court law week. The Court held that two posts by Fouad Najem were held to have been a part of a larger campaign to "attack and discredit the reputation of the plaintiff."

The Court ordered Najem to pay the rival blogger $300,000 after it held that a series of posts he made stating his rival was a "paedophile" were defamatory.

The defendant did not appear at the hearing nor did he send any legal representatives or produce any evidence.

The ordinary reasonable social media reader: "Dutton v Bazzi is a significant decision"

The "ordinary reasonable reader," is the one to interpret what the published material really means.

When it comes to social media, that ordinary reasonable reader is not the same as the ordinary reasonable reader of newspapers or a hard-cover biography.

While the Plaintiff referred to cases such as Hockey v Fairfax Media Publications [2015] FCA 652 and Rush v Nationwide News, Her Honour noted that these cases deal with...