Mayor's failed defamation lawsuit a 'glimpse into the future', academic says

A public policy academic says social media is the "new town hall" and has called for clearer "rules of engagement" after a Tasmanian mayor's failed defamation lawsuit.Launceston Mayor Matthew Garwood took to Facebook this week saying he "respectfully" disagreed with a magistrate's decision, after a court ruled in favour of the defendant.Court documents show on July 28 last year, Trevallyn local Ray Norman circulated a photo of a car in a disability parking spot that he had digitally altered to include Cr Garwood's photo, contact information and wrongful claim he had misused a disability parking space in Launceston.The captions included: "Bung on the bling and expect to be treated like a bloody celebrity."The photo of the car was originally posted on a Facebook page by another person under the comment "the lord mayor of the mall", but Mr Norman "assumed" the post was referring to Cr Garwood, deputy chief magistrate Ken Stanton said in his ruling.Mr Norman modified the photo "without doing any research as to the owner of the car shown in that post", Magistrate Stanton said.The modified photo was then emailed to Launceston councillors and Tasmanian MLC Rosemary Armitage.Matthew Garwood was not present for Wednesday's court hearing at the Launceston Magistrates Court. (ABC News: Michael Brooks)"The evidence establishes and the parties agree that the original Facebook post was not referring to the claimant [Cr Garwood] at all. The claimant had no connection to the car shown in that post," Magistrate Stanton said in his judgment.Councillor Garwood, who self-represented in court, was seeking $15,000 for reputational damage, emotional distress and diversion of resources.However, deputy chief magistrate Ken Stanton ruled in favour of Mr Norman."If any [reputational] harm was caused or likely, I consider it would be, at most, minor harm," he wrote."While it might be accepted that the email was inappropriate, unreasonable, prejudiced and malicious in its tone and content, that is not sufficient to establish the claim in defamation."'This one beat me'In a post on his Facebook page after the decision was handed down, Cr Garwood said the matter had taken a toll."If I had my time again, I probably wouldn't go through this process," he said."This one beat me. I have no problem owning that."The mayor was not present for Wednesday's court hearing due to a local citizenship ceremony.Cr Garwood said he was concerned that his experience would deter others from running for public office."Holding public office should never mean accepting elevated and targeted personal attacks," he said."Respectfully, I am genuinely baffled by the outcome."'New rules of engagement'Without commenting specifically on the Garwood v Norman case, University of Tasmania Professor of Management David Adams said cases like it provided a "glimpse into the future"."We're likely to see more of this happening. We're likely to see it happening more quickly. We're likely to see the increased use of AI to enhance arguments that are being presented," he said."We need to think how to simultaneously better protect our elected members from unnecessary criticism and at the same time better enable our citizens to engage in that civil discourse."Professor Adams believed the vast majority of social media users were unaware of defamation laws."Historically … these sort of debates would have played out in a town hall and some of the language in there probably would have been defamatory," he said."But social media is the new town hall, and we now need to sort out what these new rules of engagement are."