The online search monopolist Google earns a lot of money with illegal content. FinTelegram readers know that. A court in Australia has now convicted Google of defamation and ordered it to pay the former politician John Barilaro (pictured above) $515,000 over two defamatory YouTube videos. Barilaro, the former New South Wales state deputy premier, had sued Google and comedian Jordan Shanks in the Federal Court over the videos. Justice Steven Rares found Barilaro had been the “subject of a relentless, racist, abusive and defamatory campaign conducted on YouTube.”
Barilaro’s case against Jordan Shanks was settled in November 2021 when the comedian and political commentator issued an apology, agreed to pay AU$100,000 ($72,000), and edited the videos. Shanks’ campaign had been cited as a reason for Barilaro’s decision to retire from politics last year. The videos had been viewed tens of thousands of times and earned Google thousands of dollars, the judge said.
Barilaro told reporters outside the Sydney court that he felt “vindicated” by the judgment. “I am emotional today. To hear His Justice read out the reasoning and the evidence and the case itself again is a little bit traumatizing,” Barilaro said, but he would be happy that it’s the end of the journey. He added that people have to be either courageous or stupid to take on Google.
Barilaro would not have sued if Google had taken down the videos uploaded in 2020, as requested, he said. “Once they get our letter, and we say it is defamatory, it is racist, you should take it down and they don’t take it down, then they’re on the hook just like any other publisher,” his lawyer Paul Svilans said. “They are a trillion-dollar company that facilitated the publication of horribly racist material about John,” he added.
Google eventually abandoned all of its defenses against Barilaro’s suit. A four-day hearing in March only focused on the amount of damages Google would pay.
