A court in Australia has ordered Google to pay a former legislator some 715,000 Australian dollars in defamation damages over two videos posted to YouTube.
The Australian Federal Court found that the two videos drove John Barilaro, the deputy premier of Australia’s most populous state New South Wales, to quit politics prematurely.
Judge Steven Rares says the videos, which were posted by political commentator Jordan Shanks amounted to a relentless, racist, vilification, abusive and defamatory campaign against Barilaro.
The judge says that Alphabet Inc’s Google, which owns content-sharing website YouTube, earned thousands of dollars by hosting the two videos but failed to apply its own policies to prevent hate speech, cyberbullying and harassment.