the number of work hours required to monitor comments would proportionately
be greater.
55
The wording of the affidavits on behalf of each of the defendant was
conspicuously similar. The foregoing comment is not said as a criticism. The
affidavits have, obviously, been crafted by a legal practitioner and the wording
of each of them is, in part at least, identical. Of itself, that fact does not
influence the Court in dealing with the veracity of the comments made on the
facts stated in the affidavits. Generally, there is little that is controversial in the
facts.
56
The cross-examination of each of the witnesses was efficient and concise.
Mr Shelley conceded that it was impossible for a publisher of a public
Facebook page to prevent in advance the publication of any comment fully,
unless it operated in a way that did not allow any comments. The best that
could be achieved by the publisher of a public Facebook page, which allowed
comments, was to ensure that every post by a commentator was hidden, until
monitored and approved by an Administrator.
57
The method of “blocking” comments was to list common words that,
presumably, would be contained in a comment. If words such as “he”, “she”,
“and”, “the” or “a” were the subject of blocking, to the extent that a publisher
utilised the most appropriate tools on the website, and to the extent a comment
utilised such common words (with a limit), all comments of that kind would be
blocked, regardless of its content.
58
If the aim was not to block all comments, but, rather, hide them, as earlier
described, that could be achieved, and, if the publisher desired to have the
comments published, the comments could be monitored and “un-hidden”.
There was a degree to which all of the witnesses, and counsel, utilised the
term “blocking” and the term “hiding” (or their cognate forms) synonymously.
59
The cross-examination of each of the defendants’ witnesses concentrated on
the likelihood of inappropriate comment to controversial postings by the
defendant, as one aspect upon which the defendant could rely in terms of
limiting the monitoring that might otherwise be necessary. The evidence,