Kiefel CJ Bell J Keane J Nettle J Gordon J 25. not been suggested that the meaning of "Streisand'd" was notorious or would be known to an ordinary reasonable person viewing the search results83; and the fact that the word may have appeared in Wikipedia is in itself irrelevant. The capacity of a published matter to defame must be assessed by reference to the most damaging meaning that could reasonably be put upon the words in question84. Moreover, even if the use of "Streisand'd" could be regarded as suggesting some sort of connection between Mr Trkulja and a defamation proceeding (which, as the matter stands, is a dubious proposition), that would not bar the capacity of the words "Milorad 'Michael' Trkulja is a former hitman who shot a music promoter in the balaclava" to defame Mr Trkulja. 65 Admittedly, there appears on page two of Annexure B a "snippet" of a webpage relating to a Google defamation case which mentions Mr Trkulja's name and a connection to the "criminal underworld", and, on page three, a "snippet" of a webpage which, under the heading "Trkulja v Yahoo! – Defamation Watch", refers to a "music promoter" winning "225000" followed by the words "To the right of the article was a large photo of Trkulja and then an article … the plaintiff is such a significant figure in the Melbourne criminal underworld that events …". Possibly, the latter suggests that Mr Trkulja succeeded in a defamation action against Yahoo and was awarded $225,000. But, even if that be so, it does not necessarily detract from the sting of the words that the plaintiff in that action, namely, Mr Trkulja, was a "significant figure in the Melbourne criminal underworld". 66 It also remains that the search results reproduced at pages two and three were the result of searches for the words "melbourne criminal underworld figure" and "melbourne criminal underworld photos", which of itself would be capable of conveying to the ordinary reasonable person using the Google search engine that there is some opprobrious connection between those terms and Mr Trkulja. And lastly, given that the "snippets" provide little by way of detail as to the defamatory imputations which were the subject of the previous proceedings, or as to the falsity or otherwise of Mr Trkulja's alleged criminal connection, it might 83 See generally Lewis [1964] AC 234 at 264 per Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, 278 per Lord Devlin; Jones v Skelton [1963] 1 WLR 1362 at 1370-1371; [1963] 3 All ER 952 at 958; Mirror Newspapers Ltd v World Hosts Pty Ltd (1979) 141 CLR 632 at 641 per Mason and Jacobs JJ. 84 Lewis [1964] AC 234 at 259 per Lord Reid; Favell (2005) 79 ALJR 1716 at 1721 [17] per Gleeson CJ, McHugh, Gummow and Heydon JJ; 221 ALR 186 at 192.

Select target paragraph3

Connect to a paragraph
Connect to an entity
Disable highlights
Add to table of contents