Pulse Tasmania Facebook page reported to anti-discrimination body over allegations of racist comments on post

A screenshot of the Pulse Tasmania Facebook post featuring former premier Peter Gutwein, which attracted harmful comments. (Facebook: Pulse Tasmania)

Tasmania's multicultural council (MCOT) has formally complained against local media company Pulse, alleging the company has facilitated the incitement of hatred towards people with migrant backgrounds by failing to moderate comments on its social media pages.

Council chair Aimen Jafri reported Pulse to Tasmania's anti-discrimination body, Equal Opportunity, after community members reached out to her regarding an "outpour of negative comments" made on a post by Pulse on Saturday.

The post, about former premier Peter Gutwein's fundraising plans for the Migrant Resource Centre, received over 200 comments and more than 700 'reactions'.

While many commenters praised Mr Gutwein's mission, others posted racist comments that held anti-migration views or complained about "fake-ugees". Some of these posts remained on the page for more than a day.

Ms Jafri said those comments were offensive and discriminatory and made people from migrant and refugee backgrounds feel "vulnerable".

She said it was a shame given the nature of the original media story.

"Peter's walk was all about creating that cultural awareness … it's all about creating that conversation that migrants [and refugees] are adding a lot of value to the state," Ms Jafri said.

Media companies are responsible for social media comments on their page

A landmark media court case in 2019 established that Australian media organisations are considered the publishers of third-party comments on their social media pages, and are therefore able to be held liable for them.

Some media organisations, including the ABC, turn off the ability to comment on Facebook posts after it is no longer practical for the comments to be moderated.

Pulse Tasmania's social media policy states it aims to remove inflammatory comments "as soon as possible", including those that are "offensive, racist, vulgar or hateful", that are defamatory, or that contain "threatening language".

Ms Jafri said while she reported individual comments using Facebook's own mechanism, she did not contact Pulse directly.

In a response to the ABC, Pulse said it assessed comments "on a case-by case basis when a complaint is made".

"We have not received any requests from our readers or members of Tasmania's multicultural community to remove specific comments related to this story."

Pulse said it was "heartened by the overwhelmingly positive response" to the post, and encouraged readers to directly report comments of concern.

Pulse's Invasion Day post attracted 'threats of violence'

A separate complaint was made to Pulse earlier this year by a member of Tasmania's Aboriginal community, Jamie Graham-Blair.

He complained to Pulse about "threats of violence, ignorance, homophobia and racism" in comments made on the company's 'Invasion Day' post.

The ABC has seen these posts, many of which remained online for more than three days and contained racist slurs and threats.

Jamie appealed to his social media followers to report hateful comments to various anti-discrimination bodies.

"That day fills my stomach with anxiety and fear as well as pride and strength every year, and it's always the comments sections of various pages and media outlets that make me so very aware of Australia's seething desire for me, and my people to not exist," Jamie said.

"It shouldn't fall on the shoulders of those who are already facing the violence of racism every day to make public spaces, online or otherwise, safe for us to exist in."

"If Pulse wishes to be viewed as a media outlet then they need to be held accountable to the same standards and laws as every other outlet," he said.

At the time of Jamie's complaint to Pulse earlier this year, Pulse responded that it did "not have the resources to continually monitor comments across all posts after the initial 'wave'" and that after a story's publication "comment moderation is undertaken on an as-reported basis".

Pulse eventually disabled comments on the post and apologised "for any hurt caused as a result of hateful comments".

Pulse says they're yet to receive requests to remove comments 

A Pulse spokesperson said due to not receiving "any formal complaints in relation to the comments on Saturday's story", "there is no framework for us to take specific action".

"In the interests of impartiality, comments which may be considered subjective and are not targeted at a specific person are assessed on a case-by-case basis when a complaint is made," the spokesperson said.

"We encourage our readers to directly report any comments of concern they encounter on our platforms by following the steps outlined on our website, which will enable us to address them promptly."

Pulse said it will "attempt to make contact with the multicultural council to discuss their concerns as soon as appropriate".

Tricky role of social media moderation

The 2019 court case that affirmed media companies as responsible for the comments on their social media pages dealt with a former NT youth detainee who sued three of Australia's largest media organisations for defamation.

The media companies appealed but their case was dismissed in the High Court.

Social media researcher Rob Nicholls says media organisations benefit from increased publicity from interactions with their content on their social media pages.

"[Media organisations] have control over whether they moderate what their followers say or not," Dr Nicholls said.

"By choosing not to, [they're] effectively endorsing those actions."

Dr Nicholls also said the organisation's size was not a consideration under anti-discrimination or defamation law.

"Perhaps the most logical thing to do would be to not allow comments on the content that's going to cause much harm."

Jamie called for a "growth in media literacy", including the identifying potentially harmful and discriminatory online content.

"To know when to take things further than reporting to social media platforms. To know what hate speech looks like, what discrimination looks like, what human rights abuses looks like, to know when a platform is breaching ethical practices and how to hold them to account," he said.

"The world needs more accountability right now, especially in the media industry."

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