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People are silhouetted as they pose with mobile devices in front of a screen projected with a Facebook logo, in this picture illustration taken in Zenica October 29, 2014. Facebook Inc warned on Tuesday of a dramatic increase in spending in 2015 and projected a slowdown in revenue growth this quarter, slicing a tenth off its market value. Facebook shares fell 7.7 percent in premarket trading the day after the social network announced an increase in spending in 2015 and projected a slowdown in revenue growth this quarter. Reuters/Dado Ruvic

A Sydney couple has to go through serious legal allegations after they posted controversial comments about their neighbour on Facebook. In fact, the court has hit the couple with a legal bill of AU$15,000 for whatever they did.

In July 2014, Matt Palmer and his wife Annette shared a series of pictures of Nader Mohareb, a local resident of Scotland Island – 30km north of Sydney in Pittwater. The couple described the man in the photographs as “highly volatile individual ... often abusive and threatening, particularly towards women and children,” Fairfax reported.

Mohareb accused the couple of sharing his pictures on Facebook and commenting negatively on the same. He said that the posters claimed that he has a fake personality and presented him as an unstable and violent person. He urged that such uploads should be avoided by the members of the social media community.

Since the beginning of this incident, the case has been presented at least seven times in the court. The couple was not even ready to apologise and denied the allegation of spreading the pictures around the Scotland Island. They said that they shared the pictures on Facebook but they did not spread anything across the Scotland Island. However, both parties came to a negotiated conclusion and the court hit the couple with a legal bill of AU$15,000 in return to dropping the case and publishing a formal apology.

The principal of Cove Legal, Roger Blow, said that the case served as a warning that using social media might lead to a fake sense of security to the users. “Individuals often think online defamation is seen as less important in the legal context because of the feelings of disconnect derived from using social media,” he told news.com.au.

The lawyer said that people are hardly concerned with the feelings of people they would likely never meet. This lack of concern leads them to take such inhuman steps on social media platforms. Hence, he said that before posting anything on virtual platforms, it is important that people show some maturity to think whether it would be a justified topic to talk about publicly. He added, “You also have to remember that when you shout something it only exists in that time, whereas writing something online has the potential to stay there forever.”

Blow made it very clear that the place where defamation occurs hardly matter. What only matters in such cases is the publication of the statements and people’s reaction on the same. In case the comments are found untrue, potential claims are likely to be made by the party/parties involved.

The lawyer, on the insensitiveness of people commenting online, said that the users should be cautious enough while posting anything online because the legal proceedings involved for online defamation is complex, time consuming and expensive. “Victims and protagonists alike have to decide how much they are willing to spend to bring or defend defamation proceedings. There is a good reason why such claims are usually only brought by celebrities with deep pockets,” he said.

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