25
Over and above the foregoing, Facebook will advise the Administrator of a
Facebook page, including a public Facebook page, that a comment has been
made on the page and/or in relation to a specific article. This may be achieved
by an email notifying the Administrator that a comment has been made and, a
short while thereafter, an email containing the comment.
26
There is a second method of notification, which utilises the Facebook Business
Manager Tool. This Tool was developed by Facebook and allows persons to
manage their pages securely.
27
The Page Notifications Tab provides notifications about interaction such as:
comments; likes; reactions; mentions; and shares. When the Notification is
clicked by the Administrator or by a person operating the Facebook Business
Manager’s Notifications Tab, it opens the dialogue box showing a copy of the
post and the comments that have been made.
28
There is a third notification method, usually referred to as the “Inbox”, which
works similarly to the Notifications within the Business Manager Tool. The
Inbox lists: messages; comments; reviews; and visitor posts in a list on the
screen. When the Administrator clicks on an item in the Inbox, the screen will
show the event.
29
Mr Shelley was cross-examined. The cross-examination did not affect the
substance of the evidence recited above. It is clear from the evidence of
Mr Shelley, together with the evidence adduced by the defendants, on which
the Court will shortly comment, that the publishers of a public Facebook page,
including each of the defendants in these proceedings, may: block all
comments on the public Facebook page totally; hide all comments on the
public Facebook page, either for the purpose of ensuring only friends of the
commentator could read the comment or for later “un-blocking” by the
Administrator; could arrange for all comments to be sent separately from the
Facebook page to the Administrator and have the Administrator release the
comments. If “blocked” in advance, no comments could ever be made or seen
and the process cannot be reversed.
30
Unlike the publication of a mass circulation daily, or the usual website or
electronic version of a newspaper, the purpose of the public Facebook page is