Should You Disable Social Media Comments?
Food for thought. Facebook and other Social Media platforms have gained incredible growth over the years because they are interactive in that if configured so, they allow people to make comments right on the page (this is quite often the default setting). This can be quite beneficial for the page in that its popularity can grow, especially with many people liking and commenting on a post, with the potential to reach many people.
Some people love to comment on the posts and with most social media this is encouraged by the Admin of the Page or Group, visitors and also the original provider of the Social Media platform such as Facebook. The Admin can control if Commenting are allowed, but they generally like the benefits of comments improving the ‘status or ranking popularity’ of thier page.
The issue comes about when someone posts a bad comment. and after a landmark court decision the Social Media Admin may now also be liable for hosting that comment, and may even risk more with the longer they take to remove that offending post.
An ABC report suggests ‘Facebook pages fall quiet as administrators fear legal action over defamatory comments’
All individual people, organisations and businesses on Facebook, Twitter and other Social Media should become aware of the risks and decide how much control they wish to have over comments on thier sites.
Can you afford to take the risk? You might need deep pockets and lots of your valuable time to defend yourself against someone else’s actions whether you agree with them or not.
